“You’re coming with me!” I yelled at My Only Friend La Croix as I plucked him from the fridge. The last can! In my frenzied state I stomped down the stairs, cracking his tab with one hand as I pressed on toward 3rd Street. I was on the hunt for the lone Creosote bush in my neighborhood.

How hard it is to find a fucking creosote around here, I cursed. I directed myself to the only one I could remember in the neighborhood and took a slug of La Croix’s still-cool water mid-stride. The chill of his can contrasted against the warming afternoon sun of the desert. We walked quickly to maintain our cool.

I passed by the men digging and loitering at the construction site on 3rd Street until I approached the plant. I squinted at the bush, soaking up all of the colors and values. Drab, olive green leaves with Hansa Yellow flowers. Silvery gray stems, but only in the sunlight. I did not know what I would do about the shadows, but I figured they could be purple or violet.

I took stock of the plant, standing in the street until I had my fill. I accelerated back home toward the 4Runner and plucked the Zyns from the center console and stuffed two in my upper lip. I punched in the code to Future Apartment and ascended the elevator.

Back in my apartment, I mixed the olive first then the silvery gray-green. Fold over fold, bending the knife to drag the viscous paint over the glass into a neatly-curled, contained mass of paint, ready to accept a brush.

I swear, drinking La Croix makes me smell better. Surely it could just be the increased water intake, but something about that liminal essence gets its way into my system—lo and behold, my body odor transfuses to coconut and tangerine. I rip off my shirt and begin to paint.

I don’t know where it’s going. I only can make one move and it hits me with a riposte. Look over here, you ape, it yells back. More Naples Yellow—perhaps some sparing India Yellow to match the top section of the canvas. I don’t notice the light fading from the window until it’s already dark.

My eyes progress to the section of the canvas which I loosely consider the edge of the bush. The piece is abstract enough, with dark blues which were meant as purples, and a wide mix of olive greens dancing in front of yellow dunes. I make a note to embolden the dunes with something richer, something warmer.

I make a different mental note: to make more OnlyFans content. I stare at my painting in the dark glow, performing standing oblique curls while I lose myself in the textures. I guess I’m not really sure what I’ve been making, I think to myself. The forays of the past year have taught me a diverse set of skills I hadn’t anticipated learning—some amount of public speaking, a touch of cinematography here and there, and how to craft media to capture attention.

It feels wrong to deprive the world of such aesthetics—if only they could see what I see. To watch My Only Friend La Croix until his sweat perspires and begins to roll down his aluminum skin; to lose yourself in a staring match with a painting until you notice it breathing. It would be no easy task to capture the tension held in my legs as I loom over the painting, awaiting to pounce on the canvas with a brushstroke when it finally shows itself so that I may realize it.

It’s rookie shit, I think to myself. Really, none of it aligns with my vision. I can do better.

I’ve disavowed making cinematic edits of my painting process for some time. Continually I am asked and probed in different ways: “do you sell explicit content?” “What’s your Twitter?” I’ve been turned off from the lot of it all because it doesn’t serve me; it’s not what I do, nor is it where I want to go with my life. I’d rather paint.

But honestly, fuck it—it just seems so easy now. And I might as well put out my process. I turn on the camera and waste ten minutes of film while immobile with a brush in one hand and My Only Friend La Croix in the other. I set down the La Croix and add more India Yellow to the green mix. La Croix watches from the same vantage point as the camera.

Suddenly, the canvas is covered in Naples Yellow— gaps between the branches and leaves of the bush which had to be filled. My trance is broken and I wonder where My Only Friend La Croix has gone. I do not know if such a reflection could be captured cinematically. The moment is perfect for a short film; why should I shirk my responsibilities to share? Or is this best kept between us, La Croix?

I fetch the last of of the fridge. Finally chosen, he must think— his brothers started disappearing three days ago.

He sits and waits patiently after I take the first refreshing sip. Cold as ever, My Only Friend La Croix does his best to sit still— I know that he is frozen in motion and temperature, playing his part in the process.

That’s enough painting for now. I have let the solvents into the air and soiled my hands with oil. My body is heavy from the long day and I collapse onto the cajón and assess what changes I’ve made. No judgments can yet be made— my body is still active to gravitate my eyes to the areas which might be improved. My mind remains empty until the morning. I listen to the bubbles pop from the desk behind me.

I stack the six cans of La Croix along my sink. The box for the lot of them rests on the floor next to the discarded carton of oat milk and other recyclables. I consider performing the ritual for the fallen few; I go down the line and shake their dregs to assess how wasteful—how disrespectful to My Only Friend— I am. I consider fetching the La Croix which must be sitting in the cupholder of my 4Runner to make them eight and bury them together. To pour them out, crush them, and place each discarded frame back in the box in which they came would be sensible. No, I’ll leave them for now—tomorrow. The seven watch me from the edge as I head to bed. My Only Friend La Croix is still fizzing from the desk— the final Coconut sip can await the morning.

I sat in the shade of the Bimini and put some sunscreen on my arms as I waited for him to run from the van to the dock. I watched the boat over as they were parked on the dock. One of the kids got out of the boat and walked to the end of the dock and pencil dived to where I was hoping to pick up Dad, so I waited a minute then floated over. I pointed the nose of the boat to the end of the dock and punched it in reverse as Dad stepped into the front of the boat.

We rode out to the opening of the channel. Dad prepped the wakeboard and ran through his usual routine.

“I’ve found that I like putting the bindings back a notch,” he said to me. I hear the usual story every time that we go to Saguaro. “I feel like I get more stability when I’m landing,” he continued as he put on his white ski cap to protect his head from the sun and snapped the pink 80s life preserver over his chest. He slid off the back of the boat into the water.

I turned on the boat after he cleared the propeller and whipped toward the opening of the channel. It wasn’t too choppy—it’s always a bit clearer in the middle of the lake. I took the slack out of the rope and looked back at him.

“Anytime,” he said quietly. The noise carries over the water so there’s no need to yell despite the distance. I punched the drive and watched him stand up out of the water in the mirror.

The lake was empty except for a few fishing boats parked on the channel walls. I got the boat to speed and kept catching Dad’s jumps in the mirror. He bumped his hand with his palm towards the sky and I increased the speed. I looked back at him and he took a hand off the rope and flashed me an OK. Every inch of his body was safeguarded from the sun—he takes good care of himself.

We passed through the middle of the lake, bordered by low shores and reeds. Saguaro caught the morning sun as they stood tall on the ascending hillside. The water in front of us was glassy, unperturbed by the wakesurfing boats that we knew were coming.

“I hate those stupid damn boats,” Dad says every time we see one. Without fail—I catch the same earful about how their wake doesn’t look as big as it is until it hits you.

I looked back and caught Dad taking a hand off the rope to point to the right. I complied with his request and directed us towards the back of the lake. I pointed the boat at a 45 degree angle into some waves caused by wind and we entered the smooth water at the backside of the lake before the narrow and shallow second channel.

I turned the boat around sharply and we cruised another lap and I caught him riding the middle of the wake in the mirror, then he threw the rope. I whipped the boat around without slowing and tried to circle him before he even descended fully into the water. He caught the shallow end of the rope and I turned off the engine. We have an orange flag to alert other boaters that there’s someone in the water—with just the two of us, I usually don’t bother putting it up. There was no one to disturb us anyway. He was out of the bindings and he swam toward the boat and slid the board onto the back.

We parked and I swapped the bindings.

“I’m surprised you can have your foot turned like that,” he said to me. I told him that it’s always my back foot. “I thought you will ride both ways sometimes?” he continued.

“No, I always ride right foot forward,” I said.

“Oh,” he said.

I got into the water and jammed my feet into the bindings.

“Do you want me to turn you to the front or the back?” Dad asked.

“Let’s go to the right here,” I said. “I think it’s pretty smooth.”

We ran through the same routine and I stepped up above the water as the boat gained some speed. I wrung out my legs with a few quick turns and started hopping the wake. I looked out beyond us and saw that a red boat with a heavy ballast was off in the distance—Dad saw it too and turned us around. I ran a shorter lap toward the back of the lake. The turn at the very end is one of my favorite parts—the sharp port turn gives you some wild speed if you ride it right. I did a few jumps until we were in the clearing then threw the rope when I saw that he looked back at me.

“Nice,” I said as he circled the boat around me.

I grabbed the cleat and pulled myself onto the back of the boat and unclipped the life jacket and stood in the Arizona sun to dry before getting all the way in the vessel. We decided that it was already time for lunch. Dad pulled the small soft-walled blue cooler from under the seat and grabbed his Tupperware lunch of chicken and rice and chickpeas and I unwrapped a breakfast sandwich from Bosa Donuts.

“It’s funny, I haven’t been too certain of whether or not I should do this door to door thing—I feel like the more you talk about something, saying you’re going to do it, the more you can talk yourself out of it,” I said to Dad. He’s been a good sounding board to me for years. I found it strange that back in my early twenties, I viewed his approach to his career as the exact opposite of what I wanted out of my life—I didn’t want to work at one company for the entirety of my career, instead hoping to build a diverse set of skills and businesses that might tap into some upside, unknown to me.

“I don’t know, Kevin, I think you’re pretty motivated so I wouldn’t worry about that too much,” he said. I did feel motivated, but I was uncertain if what I was doing made sense. That’s the danger in analysis—better to do a thing and learn than to sit on your hands all day.

It reminded me of our conversation from a year ago. I had told Dad that I was planning on quitting my software job and pursuing a career as an artist and a personal trainer. I figured he would see it as a departure from his path, as throwing away a good career to pursue a foolish dream.

“Well, I think your plan makes sense,” he said to me. “I think you can do it. I don’t know much about either of those or social media or anything like that but I’m sure you’ll figure it all out.”

There’s rarely enough luck in the world to go around to have a dad like mine. I consider that there are some families which might disown you for not following in the family path and trying to become a doctor—or worse, becoming a doctor and deciding that you want to become a street performer. I’ve been blessed to have an incredible support structure. Dad recognizes that I’m going off on a limb, but he treats me with trust and respect to do the right thing and find my own success.

“Thanks, Dad,” I told him. I smashed through the rest of my lunch and got in the driver’s seat to move us away from the steep channel walls.

We rode out the rest of the day at the lake with a few more laps and plenty of breaks to take a dip and laze under the Bimini. The heat crawled in through the afternoon and we decided to call it around 2PM, ready for the toasty drive back through Tonto National Forest in the red minivan.

Late in my time in San Francisco I met a woman at an event held at Dolores Park. I saw her from afar and determined to go talk to her group, making small talk before I left. I was enamored with her dark features and shaggy haircut and she radiated a youthful innocence and charm. I got her info from the host and asked her out on Instagram, where she agreed with minimal back-and-forth.

I met her at a wine bar. She wore a brown patchwork jacket and corduroy pants and green dangly earrings. We closed out the place then went to a tiki bar near the fog apartment, where we sat right up next to each other. “I really want to kiss you,” she said. Simple and effective.

On our second date we got into more serious topics rather than just eye-gazing. We talked about children, and she said that she wanted kids. I didn’t share that sentiment, partially because I lack maternal instinct, but also because I lacked paternal instinct. Perpetually I set myself up for failure; I wanted to keep seeing her despite knowing that we lacked long-term potential.

I went back to her apartment in the Lower Haight. All of her furniture seemed like she inherited it from her grandmother. Everything had old paisley patterns and it was made of dark wood. I considered it to be of good taste. She had a standing desk and a small shelf of books, mostly techy and self-help. No philosophy and little fiction. She had a wall of scattered art. There was a surreal portrait of a naked woman reclining, covered in ants. She claimed that her sister had made it. In her kitchen was an old wooden tray that she had painted with three small oranges. She made tea and we sat on her couch as she told me about her infatuation with moths. She told me about an experience she had backpacking, lying in a field, surrounded by hundreds of moths fluttering around her, and how transformational the whole experience had been.

Over the next few weeks, things went well, and we were going on dates and sharing long conversations. We spent a full day at the beach where we fooled around just a smidge on the sand and then again in the car before leaving. We went to a cocktail bar near her place and I felt euphoric as she held my arms as we walked back outside into the chill San Francisco air. Another evening, I brought my easel over and I sketched her in her underwear as she made a watercolor sketch of a moth within a lamp’s beam of light.

Eventually it came to feel that she was keeping me at arm’s reach. I would ride my bike up the hill and see her and then be on my way. We stopped going on dates and instead focused on the physical aspect of our relationship, mostly at her place, which I enjoyed immensely. I think she realized how it was going and so she said that she couldn’t offer me what it seemed that I wanted; I suggested that we continue seeing each other with no expectations on progress. We chose to lower the stakes and things continued without the assumption of growth.

We remained in this limbo for a few months. It was a pleasant limbo but I could tell that it was not to end the way that I wanted. I would see her, bike home, and contemplate the presence of My Only Friend La Croix. I continued in my routine, going to work, seeing her, then spending time with The Rat out on the balcony, chatting about his book.

I wondered where My Only Friend La Croix had gone but I attributed his absence as a fault of my neglect. It was impossible for me to pinpoint when I had lost him. My time in Casa Sanchez might have had the last true remnants of the spirit of My Only Friend La Croix floating in its walls. I tried and tried to bring him to the fog apartment, then into the Sky Palace, but I think La Croix prefers to be grounded in the lush earth. It’s strange how the second story apartment in Casa Sanchez actually felt like it was on the first floor; just a short walk down some steps of Saltillo tile kept me rooted to the earth below. Despite using the stairs thousands of times, I didn’t feel that my apartment was elevated. I was hunkered in—my place in the valley on Sanchez afforded me something cozy and warm.

Perhaps My Only Friend La Croix only in contrast with another: no shadow without something to stand in the light. None of the art that I made gave me the sensation that I truly craved, hearing whispers from the seltzer on my shoulder, charming me to imagine immense possibilities of what might transform on the canvas. I made the art but the art was doing nothing to make me.

I was living in the Sky Palace by the time that the situation with the moth-girl fizzled out entirely. I went to a party down the street, hosted by the same organizer who introduced us on our first encounter. I saw her there, chatted, and made a French exit. She sent me a message asking where I went—I told her that I was back at my place, and she suggested that she come over. I waited for a while and she must have changed her mind. A few days later, I told her that I was under the impression that she didn’t want to continue seeing each other intimately, which she confirmed.

I kept painting. I enjoyed the stop-motion picture of dried paint flecks shifting and migrating in a wetter body of paint as I flicked the palette knife over the entire mass, turning it twice per second over the smooth glass. I only slowed down on production once I realized that San Francisco had little more to offer me, and I didn’t want to move out of the state with wet canvases.

I carried cans of La Croix up steep 21st Street. I cooked and stared out at the moon to the east from the large window in my kitchen. I felt like a spider in a web of her own creation—I was in the tower of my own making, a product of long hours of labor and now I had nothing substantial to do—I felt nothing for establishing myself in this Sky Palace as I wandered around and watered my plants and wrote code and ate bread and jam heated on a cast iron while seated at my bistro table and I smelled my fragrances and gazed out at my parked 4Runner on the hill and took showers in my pink-tiled tub and contemplated my art collection and ground my coffee by hand and climbed up the three stories to take out the trash and poked quarters into the washing machine down in the cluttered garage. Sometimes I rode the J to the office which brought me no pleasure as we all sat at our own disparate desks and I would go to lunch by myself. On the weekends I zoned out over a shot of espresso at home or I would wander down the hill through Dolores Park on my way to Spro. The place had lost its charm for me as it no longer was a respite from the early morning fog and I lost the willpower to make it there before the rest of the world was stirring.

The whole space in the Sky was too large for me and I felt listless and the world was expansive and I could not find my footing to connect with it. I tried walking, the forever-cure: I compared Quane Street and Ames Alley on either side of Fair Oaks, just outside of my apartment. Quane felt like Southern California, full of succulents and palms and bright orange flowers. Ames had a large concrete wall with drooping plants and it had a sharp, mossy chill to it. It represented Northern California. I was surprised how different they could be just by virtue of their positioning on either side of the hill. I walked late at night down Quane and mingled with the cat that crossed my path. I was learning the place but it would never be home. I had written that off. The land was beautiful but the tower had no perch for My Only Friend La Croix, and that was enough for me to abandon it.

Thanks for reading My Only Friend La Croix.

We spotted the fog against the bridge as we exited the tunnel and Wilson was trying to make a game-time decision where we would walk Nina. He seemed about ready to swerve over three lanes and take an exit at any moment, but we ended up cutting through cars all along the Golden Gate Bridge until we hit the exit in the Marin Headlands. He took a call from Miguel before we passed through the one-way tunnel.

“I’ve been working since 6 AM until now,” the voice from the car speaker said. “Roger said that we’ve gotta put this up tonight and I’m about ready to say fuck you and quit.”

Wilson gave him a shred of solidarity. “Oh man, my day, too,” he said. “I had a really nice performance review. I’m flying colors. I’m about to enter the tunnel, though, so I’m going to cut out at any moment. Come by later?”

“No, I’m going to the gym and then I have a girl coming over,” Miguel said.

“Oh, got one of your girls on the way over to give you what you need? Gonna peg you good?” Wilson said. We cut off as we drove through the tunnel and Wilson didn’t call him back.

We walked Nina around Stinson Beach in the moonlight, both of us stomping at full speed, talking about work. The conversation flowed at a mile a minute. Nina ran in circles in the sand and did a solid amount of digging. Wilson told me about how she likes to dive-bomb other dogs and run at them full speed, only to jump over them. He stopped periodically to gaze out into the surf, whispering something about spotting sharks. He said that once you had an eye for it, you could really sniff ‘em out. The moon was bright but I had my doubts. We stood on the delicate bluff among the ice plants and I followed Wilson’s lead in his gaze into the sharp wind coming off the Pacific. Eventually we broke and took a few more strides higher, only to stop and repeat the process over again.

We went back to his apartment in the Marina and snagged some tacos. I scarfed them down while we played a quick game of Smash Bros. I was over-prepared given the amount of time that I spent playing at my last job. One of his fiancée’s friends arrived. They started talking about how the shopping bags from Cabo still hadn’t arrived. Wilson made jokes about her TikTok use influencing her purchases.

“I’m not even on it,” she chimed in.

The candles dimly lit Studio 2. I was the fourth one in the studio, following a slender blonde woman in white yoga pants and a dark sports bra, a man in the front corner in yellow shorts, and a woman to the left side of me as I entered in the western door. The instructor was not in the room yet, although I had seen her just outside a moment ago. I had complimented her Patagonia jacket which was blue with hot air balloons, whimsical and fun for a hot yoga class. She responded that she wasn’t sure why she was wearing it considering it was so hot in the studio. Right she was, a cool 92 degrees. Phoenix in the late October.

A few more yogis trickled in and so did the instructor. She wasn’t wearing her jacket and instead had on a red sports bra and black yoga pants, looking much more the part.

“How’s everyone doing?” she asked. A few of us responded. “I really like this class because you get a chance to hang out in the dark as the sun remains up. It’s a great way to wind down for the day,” she said. The room was generally quiet, dimly lit, and relaxed. “Today we’re going to begin on our backs, so find a comfortable position. I want to begin by really focusing on your breath, so let’s breathe in for the count of four, three…two…one. And hold here for four, three, two, one. And let it all out, four, three…two…one…”

She led us through a warm-up, flexing our knees to our chests and rocking side to side. This class felt a lot more easygoing than those which I’ve participated in before, and at first I thought it due to the fact that it was candlelit. We quickly progressed to tabletop and then to child’s pose, stretching from center to one side to center to the other side. From here we went into downward dog. “Really push through your hands to lower your chest closer to your thighs,” said Anna. I focused and tried to pull my heels down and push through my fingertips and felt the stretch more than usual.

She led us through our first flow. We all inched our feet towards our hands at the tops of our mats with focused breath, then draped our arms and heads down towards the earth. We rocked side to side, relaxed even further. On an inward breath, we raised the crowns of our heads up to stretch toward the mirror in a halfway lift, then back out and down again. On greater inhale we raised our hands to the sky for a mountain pose, pointed pinkies towards the front of our bodies, twisting triceps forward. We grasped our left wrists with the right, pulled in a sideways bend, then breathed in back to center. We did the reverse, right on left, back to center. We did some cactus arms and opened up our chests, then we raised our arms again and put our hands together and lowered down into a forward fold, dropped our hands to the mats, and flowed, push-up to upward facing dog to downward facing dog.

On the second pass of this flow, at the peak of our mountains, Anna called out to the class to seal an intention. “The intention that I’d like to call out to today is joy. Whatever brings you the most bountiful joy, person, place, or thing—focus on that and seal that as your intention.”

A few people flashed into my mind. The Rat was the first that came to mind, then Dee, then I thought about rock climbing. Eventually I settled on thoughts about My Only Friend La Croix. Yet again I couldn’t believe that the synapses in my head have molded themselves to gravitate around sparkling water. I smiled at the thought and proceeded to cherish My Only Friend La Croix nonetheless.

We progressed through more poses, mostly centered around low lunges. We made it to the end of the practice. We held our hands together, then rubbed them for warmth. Anna instructed us to place our hands on our heart’s center, and again, Anna made a callout to focus on whatever we set as our intention at the beginning of class. “Focus again on the thing that brings you the deepest joy—person, place, or thing, and thank yourself as well.” I thought about My Only Friend La Croix. It felt more natural this time, as for why wouldn’t I be happy about La Croix?

I went about my day and finished the day with a session at Benchmark. I saw the woman that I had been crushing on for a while—only to find out that she was engaged. It was jarring, given our back-and-forth. Her fiancé was one of the coaches at the climbing gym.

I aimed to end my day as relaxed as possible, trying to quiet my inner voice as I stood in the shower smelling the fresh pine body wash, lathering it on my skin in a twisting of arms, feeling my freshly-used, sore muscles and noting their swelling in rare places as I ran my hands over them, noticing the grit of the wash as it scratched my upper arm, tight and wailing from climbing. Still, I came back to thinking-brain and was grounded in my mind, which itself was still sore from the thought of meeting Allie’s fiancé. Life was good, but dating was proving hard. It felt like there were roadblocks at every endeavor. Fits and starts. I had been in such a pleasant mental place before, letting the water drip down over my closed eyes, tilting my head back as to hear the sound against my skull by my hairline, imagining that I was within a waterfall, experiencing a low bliss. Here I was, again in thought, and I wanted to be calm as the waterfall so I tried to truly feel the heat of the water. The warmth of my own body came struck me so I went out calling for a cool drink of My Only Friend La Croix. I pulled up my gaze and saw his soft and subtle frame above the door to the shower, seemingly as tan as the rest of the bathroom, illuminated by a single candle atop the toilet which allowed My Only Friend La Croix and the two sleek Le Labo bottles to play camouflage against the hazy wall. I stared at My Only Friend La Croix alone, his bold navy cursive looking me dead in the eye, and I pulled him down and took a swig then thought about how good my sore body felt and that nothing else may matter so long as I be jacked, amen.

I made it home, took a shower, then went to bed. It was too early and I was trying to force it. My body was exhausted and my knees were stiff and sore from stomping around the concrete down Van Ness. The day might as well have started with a punch in the gut.

Somehow the entire day was elevated while I sat on the precipice of sleep, waiting at its gates, about to enter into the comfort of the transition from one bad day into a simply better, fresher one, when I heard the crack-fizz of My Only Friend La Croix from the other room, like a man on guard in the forest, suddenly brought to attention by the snap of a twig in the distance. I shifted a bit more upright in my bed, recognizing the time. It was still early. I gave a silent shout to My Only Friend La Croix, “La Croix!” out into my dark bedroom. I reveled in the fact that The Rat was about to share the conscious, dedicated space with His Only Friend La Croix, taking steps on the path of creation and simultaneous enjoyment of a late-night beverage. I knew that The Rat and My Only Friend La Croix would rest in his room while he wrote by candlelight for the night, and I smiled at the thought of the three of us; that La Croix could at least use his talents once for the night.

I split my time in the spring bussing to work in the Financial District, working remotely from our fog apartment, walking around the Tenderloin to get to the local climbing gym, and motorcycling around the Bay with Ethan. The microclimate that I occupied in this second year of my time in San Francisco was far more dreary than Mission Dolores. The days began and ended with fog, and we were surrounded by bus lines on both Eddy and Geary. There was a gate across from Jefferson Square which would project a loud buzzer toward our apartment balcony perpetually throughout the night, so nothing was ever quiet.

In the early evening I sat in the bath with all of the lights off and immersed myself in the rich darkness which I seldom cherished. A Key Lime La Croix was sitting on the edge of the tub next to me, his dark silhouette barely perceptible, left in a spot where I had to slowly trace my fingers along the smooth material of the bath to identify his aluminum skin. Eventually my eyes adjusted and I could see his body. I drew more hot into the bath, sunk my chest, then took a sip of My Only Friend La Croix. The silence and darkness were foreign, and it felt much necessary after a full day on a loud motorcycle, traversing through the hills around San Jose to Lick Observatory then down Mines Road to Livermore. The six or seven hours on my Honda had left echoes of the buzzing sensation of an engine at 4000 rpm imprinted on my crotch and skull and I wanted to soak in the scenery from the day, etching it into my brain via negativa, not cramming any other sensations into my psyche. I allowe the memories to set in my head like a layer of sedimentary rock, undisturbed by other stimulus.

It seemed that I had been kicking up too much sand, thrashing around and creating whirlpools. I was no longer able to remember all of the times that I saw My Only Friend La Croix out and about. Perhaps spreading myself too thin, adding too much to my life, giving nothing time to crystallize. I let this moment with My Only Key Lime Friend La Croix settle and I blessed all of the moments which came before it. I sighed out all the air in my body and felt the bubbles tickle my palette and I thought about the lavender flowers on the narrow road up to the east of Mount Diablo and the two other motorcyclists we met at the burger joint after seeing them at Lick Observatory and then about the two men smoking weed on the narrow road, stopped and out of their car which dipped its tires so low as they pulled out to leave, going back on the road we came in, the suspension of the Volkswagen letting the fourth and final tire sag as it made it over the lip to the asphalt and they were on the road and quickly disappeared into the distance around the bend. I thought about the orange poppies lining the fence about the road and how the yellow flowers on San Antonio Valley Road blurred into the grass, blending indiscriminately with the gray-green, just like a stroke of yellow over a green undercoat in oil. I would not be able to paint the scene from memory if I tried, I thought, but then again I have made many great paintings from an attempt—a take on such a flash of inspiration.

I thought about my own capabilities on the bike and how I felt more comfortable yet it still somewhat terrified me. I thought about the abstract sensation of a parallel life which I have felt in mostly near-death experiences, that feeling that I did in fact die from doing that, from being spun out over the side of the road or crashed into by the close-encounter SUV of the climbing gear which failed me, letting me hit the deck and break all of my bones and die, die from a universe where I slipped on a scramble, and how this existence in which I continue to live is illusory and I am an impostor, not truly alive but contained within a shadow of reality where I narrowly escaped the thing which should have (or perhaps did) kill me.

I emptied the bath with my toe and stood over the La Croix as I propped my hand against the wall so I could lean over to turn on the far-away light. I finished My Only Friend long ago while in thought and now I towered over him, naked, fully illuminated and coated in the thick sound of the bathroom fan.

The next day I flirted with a woman that I had seen once before at the climbing gym. It was the second time that I had seen her and she maintained her cheerful smile and attention that I felt radiate from her on our first interaction. She and I were alone in the upstairs section of the gym, spare for a lone man training on the hangboard. She and I chatted about her project V7 and I watched her on each attempt, the muscles of her back and biceps bulging even as she came to sit and rest. I tried some climbs and sat even closer to her. She told me that she’s a dancer, and adding in climbing has added in enough of the muscle-building that she can take. I told her how shocked I was that she doesn’t work out.

I wished I had a La Croix to sip and calm my nerves. My Only Friend was not around and I would have to do this for myself. She brushed her project as I tried mine and eventually I was able to ask her for her number.

I made my exit back toward the fog apartment. I stopped into the BevMo for a re-up of La Croix. The cashier checked me out with my two cases. I set Mure Pepino stacked over Coconut.

“How’s your Monday going so far?” she asked me.  

“Pretty solid so far. Just got done at the gym, about to go enjoy some time with La Croix,” I said. “How about you?”

“Good! It’s going by fast.”

“Nice, love a quick shift. Time goes by faster.”

“Oh yeah, and on a Monday?” she said, smirking. I thought she was cute, with nice tanned skin and well-done makeup.

“Love a great start to the week,” I said.

“Definitely. Do you want a receipt?”

“I’m good, thanks. Enjoy your week,” I said.

“Thanks, you too. Enjoy your La Croix.”

I stepped out onto dreary Van Ness. Tan clouds poked out from behind city hall, subliminal in contrast with the gray sky. I was knuckle-dragging the two cases in each hand, stomping downhill in my Vans and pink hoodie, singing along to myself to Bad Bunny. I watched a woman peering into a hole in the glass in the decrepit Persian restaurant as if it were the eye of god, then watched a man in a Packers hoodie run his hand along the bumps they installed outside of the Tesla dealership to dissuade the homeless from sleeping outside in front of the display.

I crested over Gough and looked out south beyond Eddy from the north side of the street and admired the view of the hill in the early dusk, sparse lights illuminating the distant hill, stadium lights of Jefferson Square practically level with me over the low soccer field. Sutro Tower off to the West. I thought about how happy I was now that the 20-tent-strong camp had vacated and I could now enjoy this sliver of a solid view on my walk home as I carry La Croix in each hand. I realized that the people who used to live here in tents must have also enjoyed this view just the same, perhaps daily, and I felt for them. I was still glad for my view but it made it more sentimental and somber and again I thought how fortunate I was to live in this twisted place.

I stomped up our stairs, gritty peeling white paint crumbling underfoot. I sat with The Rat on our patio and we counted the Cruise cars go by, one per minute, all with their own cheeky name printed on the bumper, like Gnocchi or Fettuccini or Poodle or Goldendoodle or whatever.

Later I thought about texting the girl from the climbing gym. I sent her something: “Nice climbing with you, let’s hit the gym soon,” very lukewarm, very middling. I had no response and I felt the pull of my device and I could not help but submit. Lonely and weak and I let my eyes glaze over as I browsed the endless stream of reasonably attractive women, all at a fingertip’s reach, calling to me, available enough that I may fantasize of the life we might so live together, happily ever after, going on dates to wine bars or camping and skinny-dipping in an alpine lake in eastern California. This one has long legs and likes dogs and smiling in the park but she may be too tall for me. Another with whom I have no sense of compatibility but find her attractive.

I send likes. I go check out my own profile after running a dozen miniature gamuts in self-selection, feeding the algorithm information about my choices and preferences. Is there some arcane reason that I haven’t received any matches in the last week? I can’t think of a reason. I pray to the Hinge algorithm, deprived of dopamine, blue light tears in my 2AM eyes. I ruminate over my own depravity. I investigate my profile, scrutinizing my details without the aim of finding any real flaws nor instigating self-reflection. I admire the photo of myself driving a boat, bicep flexing to the camera as I make a thumbs-up, considering for a moment if I have body dysmorphia over the fact that I don’t have bigger arms. No, surely unnecessary; they’re as big as my head and women have said that my arms are their favorite quality of mine. I remain uncertain where that left me.

It seemed that the damn apps had made me meek, or maybe it was the culture in the city; I felt petrified from approaching women and that my advances left me nowhere. I was happy that I was trying, but my loose attitude which used to govern my interactions with strangers had evaporated and I took the attitude that I ought to minimize: don’t impose on strangers with my eye contact, keep to yourself, don’t look the wrong way. I knew it illogical; so long as you are respectful and mild about it, everyone loves to be desired or to talk about themselves. And there I was, afraid to impose.

I took a more direct approach as the spring evolved, trying out speed dating events. I went to one in a yoga studio just north of Pacific Heights. I had no idea what to expect from this Friday night attempt at an event called “Tantric Speed Date.” I hadn’t done much research and the one that I wanted to go to was sold out, so I gave it a shot.

We stood in our circle, the women forming the inner circle and the men forming the outer. On this iteration, my partner stood behind me after I confirmed my consent to a stretch of my chest. The facilitator instructed the men to put our arms to the side, and the women were to grasp our wrists as we plunged our chests forward.

She instructed us to take a step forward to engage deeper in the stretch. She told us to begin to visualize our desire, whatever that may be, whether a person, or a feeling, or a state of mind. At first I desired something amorphous, not substantial enough to form even a memory. She told us to really visualize.

I’m in the dry, shrubby forest north of the Mogollon Rim. I’m seated on a rock, alone. The air is dry and crisp, but it’s not hot, like sticking your face into a hair dryer as it is in Phoenix. I look out to the pinkish sunset and embrace my solitude. I feel the cold rock under the seat of my jeans and I feel the smooth metallic can in my right hand. I sip the Coconut La Croix and feel peace in this moment.

“Gently come back into your own space and help the men from their stretch,” the facilitator said. The woman behind me released my wrists, and I turn to meet her gaze. She had a neutral expression on her face and I couldn’t help but stifle a smirk.

Here I was at a dating event, albeit a unique one, and all I could think of is My Only Friend La Croix, I recognized. Of all the possibilities, I’m coming back to sparkling water, I thought.

“I offer you the chance to thank your partner and I invite you to share about your desire, if you feel willing,” the facilitator said. My partner and I thanked each other.

“I don’t know if I’m ready to share about my visions,” I began. No way to explain to this stranger about My Only Friend La Croix, although the scene was innocuous enough.

“Men, please close your eyes, women reaching for a bead,” the facilitator said. I let my eyes shut and didn’t quite know what to do with the rest of my body. I held my left wrist with my right hand and I felt the hardwood floor beneath my toes, flexing my core to stand a bit straighter. I didn’t know how much I cared to receive a bead from this woman.

“Women, place a hand on your partner’s heart,” the facilitator began. My partner for this three-minute circuit touched my chest over my sweater. Some women had a more gentle touch at this step than others. “Place your bead in his pouch, real or imagined, and send this man a blessing,” she said. I tried to imagine what it feels like to receive a blessing. I stood, uncertain, imagining a point as fine as a crystal of salt shining against a space as black as the back of my eyelids, listlessly floating in space. It moved slowly from the space in front of me into the cavity of my chest. Perhaps now I was blessed.

“Women, take a step to the left, silently greeting your partner with your eyes,” said the facilitator. I cast open my eyes to each of the women that stood before me and performed these tiny, three-minute rituals, each different from the last. I danced to silent music with one, expressed a series of gratitudes with another. One woman made movements which I was to mirror. An Australian woman with silvery hair rattled off things she was willing to let go of while I stood there, nodding my approval. I received a neck massage, then gave a massage, both with a focus on complimenting what is going well, followed by a word of request of change.

On each pass, I stood there and wonder about the chance of receiving a bead. I could have left early; I knew that most of these women were ten years older than me, and I believed what I really desired was to be at home, with La Croix. Perhaps my desire for companionship got the better of me, so I remained. Plus, the experience was strange enough to warrant a fair shake.

We made about one and a third rotations of the two circles, then the facilitator closed the exercise, said a few words, sealed our intentions, and henceforth. I made my way to the restroom, said gentle goodbyes, then went into the lobby of the yoga studio. Outside was Kimberley, seated on the cushion by the window. She was scrolling her phone but looked up to meet my eye contact and I walked up to her.

“Great to meet you,” I said, nearly on my way out.

“Great to meet you,” she replied. “Definitely let me set you up with my friend. She’s also an artist and she does a lot of yoga—super cool, you’d like her. Let me give her your number. Do you mind if I take your photo and send it to her?” I said that I did not mind and I looked down at her phone, gave a thumbs-up, then she brought her phone back down low and peered at it through her glasses. “Great. Want to see her? She’s cute, isn’t she?” said Kimberley.

“Yes, definitely,” I said. I couldn’t really tell, honestly. She had sunglasses on in the photo and I only got a quick look. I supposed that at least she was closer to my age and that it wasn’t any more or less random than this speed dating event. Perhaps the whole thing could be worth it off of one connection alone.

I said goodbye to Kimberley and wished her a nice evening before jumping out onto Union Street. The three hour event left me somewhat exhausted, although I was feeling the same euphoria that comes after a long yoga or workout session. I was hungry and felt the need to capture some of my thoughts after the event, so I wandered in search of dinner. My watch showed 8:45 and I pointed myself west. A man and a woman walked out onto the empty block, caressing each other as they exited the swanky restaurant on the corner. We made eye contact as I walked beside them. The man was getting handsy and he went in to kiss her on the walk. I smirked picking up my pace as we acknowledged each other as the few out on the street. “Have a good night,” I said to them as I brushed past them.

I ate a burger and fries and began the trek straight up the hill on Octavia to get to Lafayette Park. I immediately regretted eating something heavy but I was feeling too light to care. Standard for San Francisco to stomp regardless of the circumstances. I crested over and felt the cold of the grass and looked up at the eucalyptus. I thought about kicking off my shoes and feeling the grass against my feet as the facilitator had recommended but I was in walking mode so I did not stop and I cut all the way through the park and then down Octavia toward Jefferson Square.

I felt my phone buzz and had Jordan on the line.

“How did the speed dating go, playa?” he asked.

“It was actually really fun, but not really my crowd. I was certainly the youngest one there—actually, multiple people told me I looked too young to be there.”

“What? No way,” said Jordan.

“Yeah, I think there was one girl maybe in her twenties, but the next youngest was probably like 35.”

“Wow, dude,” he said. “Well, tell you what, we’re going out in Haight and you should meet us there. I think Niki said that she’s got a young single lady friend coming out.”

“I’m not totally sure I’m making it out tonight, though,” I said. “I’m just about to get home so I’ll let you know.”

“Word. Well hey keep me posted and I’ll see you soon.”

“Sounds good. Bye.”

My Only Friend La Croix stares at me, relentless. He wants me to move but we are in a stalemate. Without appropriate motion, My Only Friend La Croix cannot be freed from his slumber. Only when I begin to move subconsciously will he make his presence known. One Mississippi, two Mississippi. We stare. I gaze at the white cream coat of his, and he at my pale, shadowed face.

The Rat came to visit San Francisco right around his birthday in December. He crashed with me at Casa Sanchez and I introduced him to all of my local spots—we went to Spro in the morning and walked around Liberty and 21st Street in the early evening, basking in the rose gold glow of the street lights which laced the hills with their tranquility. We walked around in the dark at Corona Heights and around The Castro and often stomped all the way up to Alamo Square. We did the length of Golden Gate Park and saw the spectacle of the intensely-pruned trees at the Japanese Tea Garden and obscure plants from every continent in the Botanical Garden. He and I made a lot of art, painting vases and trees and all of the spectacles of the city. The beauty of the place was convincing enough for him, so he decided that he would drive up his van in due time and I would try to get us an apartment to split.

I toured a spot near Japantown. It was in a grey building with lots of peeling paint, but it was right across from Jefferson Square Park, so I figured it would have a lot of nature access. The apartment was fairly central, situated between the Tenderloin, Hayes Valley, and Japantown. Unfortunately at the time I didn’t realize that there wasn’t really anything in the immediate area except for the park—not super walkable to any one thing, although it was close enough to many places. We rented the apartment, and I said my goodbyes to Casa Sanchez, running the mile-long trip in a U-Haul van a half a dozen times to get all of my belongings. The microclimate revealed itself to us within a week: misty, shitty, and cold. Goodbye to the warm days of Dolores.

The Rat went to Hayes Valley for a chicken sandwich and a beer to get a sense of our “local” crowd. I already knew Hayes Valley well, given that I worked there for over a year, but you never know about the people who flock there in the evening. The Rat and I kept to ourselves, mostly, and we decided to go leg around—we preferred to explore the city rather than cozy up in a venue for too long in any case. We left Sugar Lounge and made a cold, cold walk along Polk Street until we made it near the top of Russian Hill. The climate shifted and it became windier but somehow warmer. The Rat commented on the amount of waxing places and salons in contrast with our neighborhood. What sort of women live in each San Francisco neighborhood, we wondered? The name of the neighborhood, Polk Gulch, felt inherently dirty. Sharp contrast for a place with that many nail salons, waxing places, and chicks driving around in BMWs.

A smoldering cigarette spit out smoke on the concrete as we had our first view of the Bay past Russian Hill. I stared at it as I gave The Rat ample time for his moment first seeing the water as a resident, basking in the glory of the sight, lights trailing off beyond the San Francisco Bay. The view hits you over the head, instilling doubt that you actually live in this picturesque place. I had been in his shoes before, not completely sure about this magical place, cold but hopeful.

We walked down toward Fort Mason. I liked to imagine that there were sailboats tracing along arbitrary lines in the pitch black water, but there were none visible to me. Our pace lagged as we stomped up the maze of Fort Mason. We ascended the stairs, then traced the northbound ledge. There was a man setting up a folding table with a tablecloth and candles and roses along the path to his romantic nook. It felt like something for a proposal, but perhaps that was illusive grandiosity of my own mind. We passed him and I thought about Dee.

We hit Bay Street and walked up Laguna. I thought about how it might be to ride my new motorcycle on these insane streets. Would I topple down? Certainly, if I slipped up. The damn hill is nearly forty-five degrees. A novel experience, for sure, and worth trying.

The fog rolled in from the west as we approached Lafayette Park. We could see it clearly as it blew. A eucalyptus grove rests at the top of the hill in the park, and the great trees slowed the wind, collecting water in their leaves, making rain under their canopies. The dark line of wet earth was crisp—water delivered straight to us from the Pacific. I stepped past the line and felt the rain.

I picked up a set of orange and yellow dahlias so that I could start a still life, a style of painting with which I was unfamiliar and uncertain how to approach. The vase and its sharp forms seemed easier to represent, while the dahlias would be the hard part. Some of the flowers were rich and developed and fully formed. Others were still just budding.

I painted over a panel which I had already laid a few layers of blue and green paint. I gravitated towards the knife, smacking down dull grays and harsh reds against the blue underpainting. I was happy with the forms of the vase, but I drew blanks when it came to the flowers. I stared at them for a long time, dissolving vision and hoping for something greater. I poured orange and yellow out onto my palette. I scooped the paint onto the back of the knife, then fired from the hip into the panel. I was only aiming for a suggestion.

The piece remained flat. I left it to dry for the day. The air rushed in from my open window, the first touch of cool evening air contrasting the late-summer heat of San Francisco. I stood over by the window, feeling the chill float into my second story unit, gazing out into the homes up beyond Market Street.

There was no helping that Dee was on my mind. The last time I saw her in Los Angeles, I couldn’t help but look at her with lucid intensity, trying to capture vivid detail, marking a moment which I knew would pass. At the time, I had considered to myself it might have been one of the last times that I saw her. I took note of her soft brown eyes and the uneven part of her upper lip which I found so attractive. Taking note of all that I could, I felt that rueful, unwelcome ambivalence creep into my body, hollowing me out. I didn’t know if she knew that I looked at her with this intent, treasuring the moment, and I think if I had told her the cause it would have broken her in then. She asked me if I was happy with our long-distance situation the night before, and I couldn’t bring myself to answer her truthfully. I did not want to ruin the time that we had to spend together. She looked at me as if freshly baptized, and I figured that I had nothing to offer her but disappointment to come.

It wasn’t that long ago that I had wished that she lived in San Francisco, in any one of those houses beyond Market Street. I don’t know—I thought for some time that she was my soulmate. Something in my gut told me that our time was coming to a close. I gazed back at my half-complete painting but none of the sights made it to my brain.

Ethan gave me a call a few weeks later, just before the week around Thanksgiving. His dad had an empty leg on their Lear going from SFO to Chandler, so we could make an impromptu trip to Phoenix. I hadn’t planned on going back for the holiday, but I didn’t want to pass up the offer.

We piled in the jet and took off going north, circling around the south side of the city. The topography of the city made more sense from above, and I could see the sharp hills planing out as the hills stretched toward Ocean Beach. We flew the hour. Ethan and I each had a Heineken. It was golden hour coming into Phoenix, and flying in the Lear allowed me to contrast it so suddenly with San Francisco. Fewer people, all stretched for miles. Everything in Phoenix has the same warm, desert hue.

Mom picked me up from Chandler when we landed. She drove us home with the windows down, baking in the wonderful nighttime heat. It was one of the best feelings in the world.

Thanksgiving came and went. The nostalgia of being in Arizona and spending time with my family elevated my spirits while I had to simultaneously fight attitudes of regression to childhood attitudes and patterns. I often felt stale being home as nothing has changed in my home since I was ten, except now the orange tree which lived as long as I had was now dying. I wanted to see if we could plant a new one. Mom was agreeable but the momentum on that fell off as soon as the idea was uttered, interest evaporating back to the status quo.

I spent the remainder of my time in Arizona at Sam and Jacob’s. Matt came by and he brought his dog, Bob. We did a load of nothing before the sun had set fully. Finally the temperature had lowered so we all went outside to give Bob a break from his boredom. There was a show of lightning to the north and northwest. In my many years growing up with the Arizona monsoon, I had never seen a storm so bizarre. The lightning was rapid and pulsed multiple times per second, but the clouds obscured our view of any individual strike, so the light was atmospheric. Jacob commented on the light pollution from the valley. It was light enough for us to see, so Matt started to threw a tennis ball at the grey cinderblock fence across the grass. He would throw it hard so that it would leave an imprint of Bob’s slobber as a patch of darker grey against the fence, and Bob would catch it on the return off the wall. The darkness of the evening made it difficult to track the ball. Not too tough for a dog.

I thought about our decaying orange tree at my parents’ home while sitting in a plastic chair watching the dog go back and forth. I wondered if it was a sign for anything. It’s not that being home made me depressed, no—but I felt a stagnancy. I had said my final goodbyes with my family with no insurmountable pride over time well-spent. We hadn’t gotten up to much. Something caused me to feel a stranger in my own home, one who is welcome, yet surrounded by those who casually await his departure. Everyone seemed ready to resume their posts march along with routine. Something about it had rubbed me the wrong way, but I had probably contributed to the atmosphere. I wasn’t in the best spirits after having ended things with Dee.

I savored the monsoon air and my time with old friends and family, but I was ready to go back home. My painting was dry and needed more layers. La Croix waited for me in the fridge.

I sat ready for Bob to give me a chance with the ball. He dropped it before me. I threw with a straight arm and an early release to trick him into thinking that the ball should have hit the wall. He turned back towards me then heard the late thump behind him, snapping at it and returning it to any one of us willing to throw. I threw him a few straight ones, transferring his slobber onto the wall.

My Only Friend La Croix could not help but sit and admire the new world around him. Bursting with light and color, as a baby born into this world, My Only Friend La Croix was blinded by shock upon realizing his existence. Metal and water to meet the man and his earth, gone as quickly as he can drink twelve ounces. Yet My Only Friend La Croix may only regard a momentary spectacle, small bits at a time; one consciousness sewn together by the thread of life anew facilitated by the crack tab of his head. I held My Only Friend La Croix high, tipped him back so he could savor the view, and continued about my painting.

“Kevin,” Dee started to ask, “do you ever get lonely?”

I watched her standing at the sink as she washed the dishes. She was about to leave for the airport and we had spent the last few hours lamenting her upcoming departure.

I wondered for a moment and felt my eyes water.

“I mean, when I was in Arizona living alone I felt really lonely, does that ever happen to you?” she continued.

I thought about it some more, reflecting that I was excited to get my space back to my lonesome after our three weeks together. I was eager to get into my painting rhythm. Still, I couldn’t lie—I was often lonely.

“Yes, sometimes,” I told her. I went in to hold her waist.

Much of the season was spent in reflection. Dee was in Los Angeles and I was dissatisfied with my job at the startup. I got caught up in a rhythm with a level of speed I didn’t understand; I wrote, worked, went to the gym and climbed, ate dinner, and painted before bed. I biked about four miles every day—up the hill, to and from work, up the hill, to and from the gym. The momentum of it all kept me going—never stop, add some inertia for the hill, put on a layer of oil so that you may lay the next. I found it odd that I was not “burned out” due to this consistent activity, but I could tell that my mind wanted a respite so that I might process these actions with more intention.

I did grow tired of the attachment to software developing from my work at the startup. The founders’ attention to the company was warranted given their stake, but I was not so incentivized to justify deep involvement. My frustration grew to the point that I had planned an exit, so I interviewed at the solar company from which I had previously received an offer, and they were excited to have me join them.

I was uncertain about my future with Dee. She was off in Los Angeles and I was in San Francisco, and I think my internal conflicts with my career fueled my angst in the relationship. Certainly with the remote job that I attained, I could follow her to Los Angeles. I was convinced that I would move. Still, something felt off—I did not make progress in my art and I neglected my muse, a goddamn can of seltzer. Surely that would improve when I gained time back from no longer programming about trucking logistics.

I started the new job as soon as it started to get warmer in San Francisco. The heat in the city was nothing like the heat I knew in Phoenix. The Arizona heat was much more pleasant, since you can expect it and know to stay hydrated. Always unrelenting, however—at least in San Francisco, one can walk about the street in the mid-morning.

I slid on my Birkenstocks and traipsed across Sanchez to pick up a croissant. I called it my reward for starting the new job. I was still struggling to rise early with my alarm, and I snoozed excessively on this morning, but I was content with how things progressed. More than content, I thought—everyone was exceedingly nice and they seemed to prioritize employee happiness.

I wrote code from Casa Sanchez. Within a week, I lost the routine around going to Spro in the morning to write. My home had been influenced by work, and the line became blurry; I settled into a new form of work, able to use my off-time for errands around the house, but it was much harder to crack open my journal or sit at the easel and not be polluted by the after-image of a screen in my vicinity. Still, I was learning and felt good to contribute to a new team where my inputs were highly valued. The company had a mission to which I fully subscribed. I guess I could only ask for such changes.

I reached out to My Only Friend La Croix before interrupting myself—I did not choose to crack into his metallic crown as it was getting quite late and I already drank tea for the evening. Thus I laid in bed on the tails of my slumber with an emptying mind, not accomplishing anything nor garnering the initiative to suddenly rise from my sheets, ready to seize the moment and write or paint—no, I chose to wallow actively, musing over My Only Friend La Croix’s appropriate presence in my lonely life. It is feeling less and less of a coincidence that La Croix has goaded me into this Devoid Silicon Valley of Genuine Social Connection, and he has forced his way into my psyche, torturing my sense of well-being. So pervasive A Can of Seltzer has become in my life. My First Only Friend La Croix is but a tangerine memory, and now My Only Friends La Croix have become innumerable, crushed and recycled, accumulating daily. Quantity is a meaningless metric for friendships, and true satisfaction is indicated by the level of comfort felt in sharing space. My Only Friend La Croix and I had that nailed.

I arrived in Los Angeles on a Wednesday. It was tough to get an Uber or a Lyft from LAX, so Dee called one for me—I encountered her waiting outside for me, standing above the three steps before the glass door at her apartment. We held each other for a long time then made our way upstairs. We made love then took a shower and had a long conversation under the water, catching up on all that was best said in person. She did not want to go to sleep since her roommate would arrive late with her boyfriend, and she wanted to catch them before the night was up. We caught them near midnight, exchanged some stories, then everyone went off to bed.

Thursday I worked all day. In the evening Dee and I walked down toward Santa Monica and made a note of all of the fancy houses and cars along the way. We both agreed that some of the architecture of the new houses was too monolithic and the slate gray homes had a spectacular lack of character. The streets, however, were beautiful, lined with palm trees which leaned high over the halfway point of the road. Dee and I walked slowly under this light canopy until we reached a post office, which was the entrance to a food hall hidden in a courtyard with half a dozen restaurants. Dee had me choose.

We woke up early on Saturday to find our chariot for the day, a blue Toyota Corolla. There were scratches everywhere as with every rental car I’ve ever seen, so I took a few shots of the car as Dee found the keys under the wipers. We piled in and she was suspect of my driving at first, which might have been fair considering I hadn’t driven after moving to San Francisco. Still, I find myself a good driver, and I wasn’t even whipping the Corolla like my old S2000.

I drove us way up the hills north of Point Dume toward a café that Dee had picked called The Saloon. It was in a vineyard compound which neither of us realized—there were attendants and a valet. I asked if I could just park myself, and they let me put our Corolla next to a black Range Rover. The valet claimed that the first twenty minutes were free. I read the sign that said $20 by the hour.

We decided to run in and out and get our coffee to go. There was a fountain-adorned pond in the courtyard. The café itself was small but seemed well-equipped with its La Marzocco espresso machine. We split a blueberry coffee crumble cake and two drinks, all for a steal at $24. Dee took a bite of the cake and she made a cute noise and looked at me to share her excitement. I always found second-hand satisfaction from her enjoyment.

We drove down to the beach and held each other with our feet in the ocean. We were sloshed by a big wave at the same time as we turned back and saw some seagulls digging in our bags, so I chased them down with wet pants—one of them was carrying a pb&j, but it was too heavy for vertical flight, so I ran him down and he dropped it and rose. I chased off another opportunist and Dee and I salvaged the remainder of our snacks. We split the untouched pb&j and drove home, cleaned up, then went out a dimly-lit Thai place for dinner. I met more of Dee’s friends and we talked about art and Los Angeles.

“Oh, you’re going to love the Getty,” they all said.

I did love the Getty. It felt even more magical to have gone with Dee and we spent time out in the courtyard taking photos and admiring the view together. We spent a short time actually looking at the art, then we drove over to the Getty Villa for the evening. We caught golden hour and sat out by the fountain and I etched the imagery of Dee and her wonderful dark features against the soft sun and pink flowers into my memory.

I ordered a cocktail to split with Dorie. Dee looked at the menu and told me that she wanted a Pinot Gamay. She noted the price and changed her order to a Pinot Noir despite objections. The drinks went down quickly and we found ourselves back on Market Street headed toward The Warfield.

We approached the venue and scanned our three tickets, acquiring wristbands. We had missed the opener and everyone was crowded in the halls trying to get a drink for the main event, which was to start at 9:15. The old building had embellished walls and a small stage. The place was packed enough—we tried to get a spot that wasn’t in the walkway but no one would budge. I tried to corral the girls in to a spot, but a man stood there with his arms crossed and stood firm. He didn’t even look at me, as to suggest, sorry man, this spot is taken. It reminded me of something an old friend of mine would do to avoid confrontation, knowing deep down that it was a bit aggressive. He didn’t even look at me._­

We pressed on to another section around the left side and yet again we were met by the blockade. We thought we could enter a decently-sized space but a man with a gray tee and equally gray beard stopped us.

“Hey, actually yeah my wife is getting drinks and she’ll be right back,” he said.

“Oh, can we just get in the space behind you?” I asked.

“No,” he said, gesturing to the lines on the ground, “there are the waylines; there’s no room.”

We all looked around and then at each other, uncertain of what to do next. We stood in the walkway for a minute but security was sort of shooing us around, but moments later, the crowd from behind us filled in to surround us. We were still on the border of the area but we were no longer the only people standing in the alley—a trio crowded in right and front of us and more to the sides.

The first thing I noticed about Cannons was their logo on the kick drum. As I learned from Dee much later, the drummer was new. He was dressed in a sparkling silver sequin jacket and had long hair but a trimmed beard. Somewhat Jared Leto. The lead singer appeared as well, initially blocked by the man in a crisp white oxford in front of me, but I could see her clearly now. She was a thin, seemingly tall blonde girl with matching silver fingerless gloves that went up to her elbows. Her straightened bob cut framed her face, tapering from front to back, touching her shoulders. She had the same get-up as everyone else, but styled differently: silver top to cover the essentials, glossy bell-bottom pants, so tight as to illustrate her kneecaps, which had a prominent zipper down the front.

The guitarist was to match—his mercury shirt and his brown hair glistened in the red and purple lights and I thought about how it had a nice pearlescent effect and how fun it would be to be in a band and dress however crazy you wanted. The bassist was not nearly as flashy, but he still did adhere to the silvery theme. I noticed that he had his blue and white bass guitar along with a Novation machine of some sort, so I wondered what the machine was for some time but Cannons was talking now, and they had already played their first two songs which I did not quite know.

The lead singer took the mic and told us how she adored San Francisco and how the city has supported her all the while so it was very special for her. She gave a round of applause for the opener, Pink Skies, she said—and then also introduced the bandmates, who I did not catch outside of “Ryan on guitar.” She then kicked it off again into their music, lively and upbeat again, sometimes mixed with raspy, airy vocals.

We kept getting pushed further back by the trio in front of us. There was a man in black with a hat up front, followed by a girl with blonde hair and small golden hoops in a black top who struck me as rich. Perhaps her mother was rich. Occasionally on her arm was a thick-necked man in front of me who gave me odd vibes, standing and dancing in his crisp white oxford with his vodka soda in hand and slight, shifting movements of his head as to look around to the side. He and the girl were frequently leaning into one another’s ear and his hand was low on her back and I kept thinking how they were thoroughly blocking the view but it could not be helped. He and his crew were in the same spot where we had been shooed by the man waiting for his wife, but they had received no protest. It was past that point now in the show and the first man’s wife was dancing now and quite getting into it, sequined jacket to match, and I looked around and felt out of place. Dee and Dorie were having fun like everybody else; I looked up to a booth, private and high, which allowed a group of six to enjoy themselves outside of the fray of general admission. One man up in the booth was really grooving with his arms out and the girl behind him had her phone out, static and motionless, camera facing Cannons. I gazed around to the right and thought about the people dancing near me—why do I feel lacking in depth of passion to enjoy myself as they do? I do not feel compelled to dance or sing or show such emotion. I thought about the man in front of me in the white shirt and how he looked like he was built from either playing football or boxing and it made me think that I would like to take up boxing someday. There are a lot of things that I would like to do, one day and eventually, but for now I am living my simple life the way that it rolls. I am not sure why such thoughts came to me suddenly and why my mind wandered in a moment like this, ripe for the picking as a moment best kept for the present.

Dorie tapped me on the shoulder and I saw her excited face then I looked down and she had taken a video of someone taking a video. That sort of thing was always hilarious to the two of us, and she was always keen on catching people off-guard or in unsuspecting ways. I was often the recipient of such videos and I had started out with a mild disdain for taking secretive videos of others when they make strange faces or are doing something awkward. However, I had come to realize that it was likely a form of memory for her and it brought an innocent joy, so I shared her pleasure in this video and it made me think still of the oddity of being at a concert and spending so much time trying to capture the moment. I then suddenly felt the usual collective shame of living in phone-world but it distracted me from my other ruminations.

“This is the only one I know,” I said to Dorie as Cannons began Purple Sun.

“I like this one,” she said in response.

Dee and I looked at each other because it was our song and I held her. I didn’t realize at first but an usher started to pester Dee about being back in the walkway, then he peeled off into the crowd.

“That guy’s an idiot,” said a guy behind us.

I tried to exit the conversation quickly.

He continued, “How can he single one person out if the whole crowd is doing it? We’re all getting pushed back. It’s just crazy, doesn’t make any fuckin’ sense.”

I said it was crazy. I turned back around and so continued Purple Sun. The singer was prancing around and I thought more about the Novation synth and I felt glad to be there, even if I wasn’t dancing.

Cannons had a short set that only lasted until about 10:45. They said that they had one more, which was maybe a lie, although we were not fully certain at the time and began to creep slowly to the exit. Dee and Dorie and I looked at each other, shrugging, asking if it was time to go. Within a minute of the band’s exit, they were back on stage. They played one more.

We made our way beyond the long merch line and back into the cool San Francisco air.

Dorie and I said our goodbyes and how we were glad to have caught each other during her visit for the Salesforce conference. She turned to walk northeast on Market and Dee and I turned towards Sutro Tower and began to walk.

“Do you want to get a ride or do you want to walk?” I asked.

“I’m good with either,” Delaney said.

“Alternatively we could get bikes,” I added.

“I think we should walk.”

We started off and hugged each other at the crosswalk while waiting for the little man to appear in the street light. We crossed and found a good pace while walking and came across the rooftop bar where we had started the night. She then must have seen the lights on the dome of City Hall and she asked what the building was. She had answered her own question, half-joking that it was City Hall, to which I replied that it was, in fact, City Hall.

We passed through some characters on the street near the area by the support center by Civic Center. She was caught off-guard by someone shooting up late at night and it disturbed her. She was more disturbed at the time that she had seen a dog passed out on the street with no owner in sight. I felt for her; the city sneaks up on you, so beautiful and wealthy, then disparaging and saddening. I was angry at myself for how quickly one becomes jaded to the sights of the street.

“Don’t stare,” I told her.

“I’ve just never seen it,” she replied.

This was fair. I never really looked right at people as they were doing drugs on the streets of San Francisco out of instinct, but perhaps there are other ways about it. It should be inherently shocking but I’ve somehow assimilated the general attitudes of those who live here, despite never taking a good first look for myself. I didn’t even look at them.

Dee and I made it to the front. I ordered us two lattes and a ginger-lime donut as Dee went to wait at the counter by the window to claim two seats. I watched the short barista with long hair pour cups full of milk and stage them atop his machine. Initially I stood and waited for the coffees, but I decided it didn’t make much sense to just stand there so I went back to wait with Dee. She had pulled out her Colleen Hoover book and was reading.

I had felt bad to make fun of it, but it was an odd novel that was raunchy and I knew it to have been praised on social media. The only pages of it which I had read made me roll my eyes—the writing was illustrative of the trope about how women can’t understand that when they ask men what they’re thinking about, when they reply “nothing,” they truly mean “nothing.” The book was full of over-developed internal monologues made external. I know best the feeling of a sparse internal monologue, and to prescribe words to it would make it simultaneously too simple and too complex. The few pages that I read had made an attempt to externalize attraction and flirtation in a way that I found unrealistic, but much like a novel that is written like television, episodic and discrete, it had to be done to fit the audience.

I heard us called so I went to collect the donut. They served it on a warm terracotta plate.

“Oh, plate is hot,” Dee said about the donut. She smiled. She split it in half and gave me the larger piece.

“Actually, I don’t want it,” she said. “We’re going to have bread at the ferry.” She gave me both pieces.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “It’s pretty good.” I took two bites.

“Yes,” she said.

“Oat and almond milk lattes,” they called from the front. I was still chewing but made my way up to the counter.

“Thank you,” Dee said to me as I handed her the latte.

The ferry lumbered in to the port of San Francisco to greet us as we stood double-file on the dock. Dee and I had our Clipper cards at the ready. We gave a polite “hello” to the dock attendant and scanned our cards then made our way to the top deck. We sat far behind the front of the boat where we could catch some shade within the nearly opaque glass windows. Dee was wearing a simple white hat and a grey long sleeve shirt. She was particularly vigilant about sun exposure. I liked this habit about her; she had the highest standards for herself and I often mused about the potential that we had together—we had the common goal of self-improvement.

Our views of the city grew hazier. The boat turned and our line of sight became obstructed by the sea-film-covered glass as we puttered toward Sausalito. Dee and I sat silently in each other’s arms to warm each other from the cold wind moving across the Bay. I watched the neighborhoods on the north end of the city as they reached toward the sky, straight out from the ocean. San Francisco seems an improbable place to settle: how would one even begin to build a building on a 45 degree angle?

There is a magical charm in traveling to Sausalito by ferry. No matter how many times you might have visited, it feels as if this arrival is the first of its kind. Sailors already out for the day glide around Alcatraz or Belvedere, soaking up the sun that San Francisco has to spend, exercising nimble feats with nowhere to go in particular. The sailboats and yachts still in for the morning greet you as they sit idle, almost motionless, buttressed by the bay. Boats still sleeping bob gently, poised with sails upward, pointing to the houses comprising the hillside. Homes in Sausalito each take on their own character but as a whole form a multicolor set of stairs from the waters to the heavens.

The combination of sleepiness and fresh buzz of passengers departing the ferry transported us to a place seemingly foreign—how could such a place exist here, so close? How have we been so fortunate to get here? Thus we stepped down the dark and weathered gangway, over the grated metal dock, to soak it all in.

Dee and I stood for a moment and navigated between the palm trees toward a bright clay fountain.

“It’s like Portofino,” she said.

“Yes. I’ve never been, but it looks so much like the photos,” I replied.

We spent a good length of time at the café in Sausalito before we decided to pack up and make our way to the bridge. We walked along the side of the slow street and the air was thick from the fog. I could barely make out Salesforce tower from across the Bay so I pointed it out to Dee. There was a long way to walk back to San Francisco. We contemplated taking a ride at least to the bridge but we both wanted to walk in spite of the grand hill which we needed to climb.

We approached a curve in the highway. There wasn’t much of a sidewalk. Dee and I came to a disagreement on how to proceed. I wanted to walk against traffic and Dee called to me.

“I don’t like this,” she said.

“Do you want to get a ride?” I asked.

“Umm,” she pondered the question without deciding. I knew that she wanted to walk, and I looked at her some more and then made the decision that we should cross the street where we saw a bus stopping earlier.

We made it across and she suggested that we walk on the right side of the street. I started to argue but ultimately I wasn’t the one who felt uncomfortable about the thin path so I deferred to her and we pressed on.

Golden Gate Bridge came upon us more suddenly than I had realized. Cars rushed towards us and turned toward the Marin Headlands as they came off the bridge. It was tough to claim exactly where the bridge ended and the highway began. We had been walking alongside a two-lane highway for some time so this new volume of vehicles felt like a stampede, traveling faster and further than before. We were up on the walkway which was partitioned for cyclists and for pedestrians. I looked at the low handrail that separates the walkers from the fallers.

Far below the bridge was a scene from The Lighthouse of lapping waves against a jagged rock, only muted in color due to fog which shrouded it from our view. The day was warm and clear otherwise-- the calming clay-rust color of the bridge called to us to press onward.

Dee and I were in a good mood after first sight of the bridge and we took some photos making funny faces into the camera. There were other people walking, some even with large bags that looked as if they had just been to the grocer to pick fresh apples and choose their carton of eggs and snuff out the ripest avocados. We wondered where they would go, as we had come from that side and there was nothing but highway for another mile. Were they headed to the imaginary or invisible town that we had somehow missed on the north side of the bridge? Perhaps this was their everyday commute.

I inspected the rivets of the first tall red tower and marveled to myself how much of an accomplishment the construction of the bridge must have felt at the time. The higher half of the bridge was masked by fog—or perhaps cloud—and by the time that we had crossed it, I could thoroughly feel the change of the air. I looked to Dee and saw the mist on her cheeks and her eyebrows and she laughed at me and I knew that my mustache was coated and wet as well. Dee was concerned that she was all wet but I thought she looked great in her dew and I was happy to be walking with her and cross the expanse.

“This scene reminds me of some sort of fantasy,” I said, “where the characters can neither go forward nor back and not up or down either. They’re just suspended in a cloud, without any awareness of what’s around them. You can’t even tell that there’s water beneath us.”

A deep, bellowing horn sounded from below. There was no way to tell from where it originated. “It’s something of a limbo where everything is unknown around you, so you just remain in your place. You’d be isolated but pure.”

The thought of La Croix came to me. His absence of limbs and ability to press onward. Perhaps the isolation was not pure; we can’t just stay in the fog forever.

I spent much of the late spring and early summer contemplating if San Francisco was the place for me. Some dates here, a little climbing there, and a lot of work spread between.

I walked to the gym under the great green trees bordering Harrison Street with their fresh orange-red poufs: delicate floral arrangements of slowly-shedding needles. My mind was blank with nothing to call them. This struck me with sudden realization and longing towards my prior, familiar home, coupled with a sense of foreign betrayal to my new home. Alienation from this place: I deceptively consider it home, but how could I exist here and not know the names of the trees?

In Arizona, I came into spring knowing of the imminent but temporary coats of gold which envelop the Palo Verde. I would go out into the yard and step upon seed pods dropped by our mesquite with its three-foot wide trunk and spindly arms. My dad would go out in a large hat and leather work gloves and a sweat-stained, long-sleeve shirt to collect them into a five gallon bucket so he could mow the grass. He would gripe about the labor of having such a tree, but it always provided shade under its great branches for our backyard, keeping us cool in the southwest heat.

I remembered the Mexican Bird with its delicate flower pods that I would go out and squeeze to uncover their unborn pedals in an early morning before a trip to Saguaro lake along the Salt River. I would watch the bees collect pollen from the orange bush with buds that burst into flowers and their collection of spindles from which the bees hang like little pole vaulters. The spindles buckled under the weight of the bees until they flew off to ease the load and move onto the next. The fruit of the Prickly Pear, the crowns of the Saguaro, and the arms of the Agave which reach towards the sky. My favorite of all was the creosote, with its rich, waxy dew scent that comes after rain.

I don’t know all of the trees and plants in Arizona, but I recognized the inherent, taken-for-granted familiarity which stemmed from being born into that environment. Now I was without such a grounding.

I crossed Harrison Street past 18^th and made my way toward Mission Cliffs. A slender woman approached from the south, walking the opposite direction, carrying a case of what I perceived to be Coors Banquet. As I got closer, I realized that I was mistaken, and that she carried none other than My Only Friend La Croix in her right hand. Limoncello can be deceiving. How wrong was I to assume the more sinister—My Only Friend La Croix makes for a better choice than Coors in the early morning.

She did not look at me as she passed. I was still growing accustomed to passers-by staying on guard from catching the crazy-eye of the strong stranger. It was dangerous to acknowledge and associate yourself via eye contact into this skewed society. The social phenomena struck me fully when I was once side-eyed by a baby in a stroller. Best to keep to yourself. Still a suburbanite, I was slow to adopt the case of paranoia and hyper-vigilant behavior as status quo.

I climbed for a while. My heart was not in it. I walked back home and talked to old friends on the phone.

I lazed on my leather bench trying to absorb as much sun as possible. I pulled out my phone, looking up the name of the trees in San Francisco with red flowers. “Red flowering gum tree,” it was. I romanticized the name as I tried to romanticize the city, despite the coming melancholy that the “summer” was bringing. I did not see the melancholy to be ephemeral—no, this was forever. What struck me so deeply, putting out my fire like a good boy scout at camp, smothering any hope of resurgence to the bright, hot fire and passion which warm the spirit? I chose to linger on this melancholy. To stifle it was one option, but so was to lean into that hollow feeling which granted me a foreign exposure to a sense with which I was not intimately familiar—a sense meant to be savored and explored, purely on the basis that it was inexplicable.

It became easy to forget that wallowing ought not be forever. I tried to recognize this feeling as fixed to a place and time, which I would soon leave behind in its limbo, like the half-sleep that prompts a call for five more minutes of rest. I knew it was best to get up and move; the waking world had much to offer with the day. The sun might only be out for a moment.

Painting was dull. Everything I made felt sub-par so I was dissuaded—perhaps my skills were left in Arizona. Perhaps it had always been luck from the start.

Saturday was passing quickly. I sat at my desk and caught myself looking through the aperture of the close houses on Sanchez into the western hillside past the point where Market Street became Portola, comprising a sliver of Twin Peaks, envisioning that within one of the houses facing me was a subliminal figure which was only a speck out on the patio. I imagined the prospect of this speck waving out to me, acknowledging my presence from afar, despite either of us being able to make out the figure or the details of the other. I imagined that if we were caught at the right moment, we would cherish our mutual, yet indistinguishable presence.

The fog cascaded over the houses unique to each day. I forgot where the top of the hill truly sat with my vision obscured. I perceived a narrow slice of the hill. It caught me off-guard to realize my memory had lapsed—where were those peaks?

I hoped that my imagined figure and I were connected, even if obstructed by the fog. Yet never did I go to Twin Peaks in search of this apparition. Why should I? It was simply the whimsical expression of desire; I wanted for nothing more than to have a lover so close that I could reach out and grab her, but my mind played tricks on me—I craved a connection, not too close, but not too far.

The fog remained light wisps in my apartment that day. I laid on the bench and felt the sun and sensed a minor sweat. La Croix beckoned from the other side of the apartment.

“Oh, La Croix,” I said to him, “you can never get away from me that easily.” I savored the sip. The carbonation had left the can so the sour flavor of coconut was more prominent. I turned again to face my painting, leaned back against my stool, and stared into the work. I rolled invisible money between my fingertips, feeling for leftover oil, peering down at my flesh. The sun was nearly setting and I was alone in my apartment with dim studio light. I set La Croix down so that we could ignore each other while I focused on my painting, knowing that I would need him in a moment.

The canvas sat in front of me, unfinished. I couldn’t remember how the piece had begun, but it was growing near completion. Gentle yellow and golden folds sat atop a deep purple—profound purple like an especially bizarre dream. Sharp rolls of black, infused with streaks of a brighter purple, rolled and twisted like waves on the canvas. I inspected it some more and noted the spots which did not yet have the necessary slice of oil in place. I made a note to fix the vacancies, hoping to apply the perfect slice of oil at a later moment, but My Only Friend La Croix was calling.

I took another swig of La Croix and set him down to face the canvas—perhaps he would give me some choice words about what to do next. I washed my hands then sat at my desk to write.

How is it so easy for My Only Friend La Croix to remain so still? Whenever I come looking for My Only Friend La Croix, I find that he remains in a peculiar, inhuman state: unperturbed, waters calm and without ripples. My Only Friend La Croix does not make any attempt to evade me, but how dare he! He does not reciprocate my calls when I begin to search for him, yet I suppose he does not need to—I can feel his presence at every turn. It calls in the back of my skull, and I know that My Only Friend La Croix is out there, echoing, “drink me.” Oh, Poor Only Friend, Poor My Only Friend La Croix. He lacks exactly what I can offer him, what he instills in me; for only together we can stir the waters and rock the boat, shaking things up and inducing a reaction of such fuzzy bubbles.

Never truly sure what I was talking about. Perhaps I was reading too much Proust. I fondly remembered reading Proust aloud to Dee the last time that we stayed together, strewn out along my low bed. I did my best with the French pronunciation and stopped every now and then to explain obscure vocabulary.

I missed her immensely. No one compared despite the fact that I tried my hardest to assimilate to a new life in San Francisco; she and I both knew that it didn’t make sense for us to be together from afar, and neither of us had the expectation that one would hold out for the other. Still, I had never met anyone like her and I knew that I didn’t want to be with anyone else.

I considered my little idiosyncrasies from the last time that we spent time together—my annoyances at her excessive use of toothpaste and leaving the sponge wet in the sink. Problems of my own mind, not real issues. I found a lack of alone time to paint. I had awaited my reunion with My Only Friend La Croix; I needed the time to get into the zone. I never was compelled to paint with Dee around. Those activities with which I center myself have been put aside; new acts have taken their place. Still, I need time and space for my own hobbies.

I distracted myself with a walk. I zipped up a jacket and slipped on my Vans and took La Croix out the door with me. I did a block to the east and two to the north, then came down Sanchez back to my apartment.

I caught a glimpse of the same house in perpetual construction up the hill. Every time that I’d walk south down Sanchez, just between 16th and 17th, I had an unobscured view of one of the houses up there—maybe up on Liberty Drive—which always looked to me that it was still just rafters. They hadn’t put in the windows in the months that I had been here. Maybe poor supply chain, maybe a shortage of labor—who knows?

I thought back to Jared doing labor for the woodshop that did specialty doors. They built these beautiful custom doors with walnut or cherry or mahogany. Jared used to describe these doors like they were made of solid gold—he said they’d swing on their hinges, hundreds of pounds heavy, fitted perfectly to the frame on a house created for high rollers. He mentioned Shaq as a client: imagine the grandeur needed for any standard-stature rich person, then multiply that by the factor which amounts to the massive former Suns player.

Jared would always talk about the guys doing the labor for these doors and how they were paid reasonably well, all things considered, but it ultimately amounted to peanuts compared to the revenue generated on a sale of these custom doors. Thus Jared wasn’t worried about taking the occasional piece of maple or birch or walnut to bring home to his own shop that he had constructed for our Phoenix house with those scraps.

I thought about the discrepancy in pay—Jared was talking about these guys, Willie and Rocky, how they were the type of working-class man you’d find at such a place and that their cut was really a pittance. I stared at the house and thought about that: how do you make sure you’re on the right side, peeling away from the competition so that you’re the one with the labor and its fruits?

Jared enjoyed the labor of working at doors for his stint. I could tell it was grating on him eventually, despite how he praised the advantages. He was building a solid core from carrying around tools and doors all day. Jared told me about the camaraderie of being in the shop with Willie, who would deeply and immediately echo out a stout “fuck!” every time that he heard someone else curse in the shop. This sounded a hell of a lot jollier than sitting and pecking at a keyboard, diagnosing why an asynchronous method wasn’t receiving its passed parameters.

I came back into my apartment and glared at what I had done to the canvas. I threw the empty La Croix can into the recycle bin. I thought back to the simplicity of life in Phoenix and the connections that I had.

I grabbed a tangerine La Croix and went to fill the bath.

My Only Friend La Croix exists as the line between silence and static. I sat in the bath, soaking my body. I cracked into the La Croix. The sounds of the vicinity of my apartment seemed duller than before, verging on true silence. There were sporadic gusts of wind which felt to be above me and the world was otherwise quiet. It was one of the most quiet experiences I had felt in a while. Shit, it might have been one of the most lonely experiences I had in a while as well. I was in a closed room inside of another room, and if I was to have a stroke, no one would have found me for weeks. The only way that they would have found me is if my family grew suspicious after not having hearing from me for a while. The closest person who really knew the inner workings of my life was maybe my aunt in the East Bay, who might have come to attempt to check on me in my gated apartment complex. Maybe Snake would have grown curious if I never responded to him, but that seemed unlikely given our relationship at the time.

I heard the fine line between silence and static. Small popping bubbles were the only thing to break up the absence of any sound. I stared at the orange exterior of My Only Friend La Croix and smiled, for it was a good day to not die alone in the bathtub.

I have listened to you quite well, My Only Friend La Croix, I thought. Your presence in my life is ever-growing—you have captured every corner of my psyche, and, well, you’re right, My Only Friend La Croix. The simple elegance which you exude has stricken me and I see your point. But it’s easy for you to say, My Only Friend La Croix, as you are born of a perfect form and you recognize the impermanence of life. My Only Friend La Croix, once you’re gone, you’re gone, but that was your purpose all along.

Oh, My Only Friend La Croix, how you are surely misunderstood. To have an existence straddling the line of transient and disposable body along one which satisfies and socializes me so must be impossible—meaningful and meaningless. To add insult to injury, My Only Friend La Croix, I know you must understand that you are misunderstood. Yet surely you remain nonplussed—nothing gets into your crisp aluminum skin. You stand still, unfazed, La Croix. Still, never unfizzed.

I toweled off and put on shorts, cracked the window by the street and let the chill air roll in. I needed the ventilation to paint. I never ran the heat, for it would be a waste with an open window, so I was forced to upregulate. I found it better to wear just a pair of shorts while I painted and let myself be so cold as to tell my body to make its own damn warmth.

Everyone was familiar with La Croix, but I was confident that no one knew My Only Friend La Croix. His presence was the whole world that I would conjure for myself. It was where I would turn when I was alone. Nothing about My Only Friend La Croix was about loneliness with a capital L, the harsh, brutal sort of loneliness; it was about solitude and the feeling in which I entertained myself without feeling the harsh sting of silence. I needed forge on with my individualism, and at the same time, recognize my loneliness. My Only Friend La Croix did not speak and could not pass any input into my life. He was simply a mirror for the attitudes that I adopted when reflecting on solitude—was I to wallow alone with my silence and inaction, or to recognize  my hollow and forge on anyway?

It was drizzling by the time that I made it under the awning outside the office. I buzzed into the door and trudged up the stairs. I was again alone in the office for the first few hours. Slowly, Nick and Allen trickled in. After zoning in to work for a few hours, I looked up and noticed that there were two strangers in the building.

I took out my headphones and went over to introduce myself and I was caught by a sense of being on edge toward the older couple in front of me. This sense felt irrational but in my gut I knew it was not without backing.

One of the two before me was a stout man with intense blue eyes which carry a sense of focus as Allen’s do, yet his gaze more intense. He shook my hand and I thought back to the time that Jared felt slighted by Brown Russell, who took his hand and twisted so that his palm was facing downward and Jared’s upward. Dave did this to me and I could not tell if it was an automatic action for him or if it was done by a sense of old-man dominance. I felt like a man who was in a place with cultural customs not his own then I remembered that I was in my home country and this man’s state of Colorado is not that different from California nor Arizona. It could not have slipped by this man for his entire life that he is shaking hands like an asshole, though it is not the kind of thing that one would be corrected on. I then had the thought that I missed a fine chance to point out his blunder, yet it was gone in an instant. Many men have been through this exchange before, I thought.

“How’s the oil business been?” my boss asked him.

Dave led into the details about his fracking business. I disliked him even more through their conversation but I tried not to let it show on my face nor in my eyes. I looked at his wife who was very tanned and fit and did not say much, but she seemed quite lively.

“It’s honestly been tough to find drivers, given the economic conditions,” Dave responded. “It’s many tons of sand that we have to deliver for the fracking, you know.”

It occurred to me strange to be employed by the son of this man. I then felt a slight shame that I made a judgment on this son of a man who has no control over the actions of his father. I sometimes get in a loop of judgments to the actions of my own father, who had allowed me to become such a computerized child, unsafe from the pull of devices and screens, withering away with the flick of my mouse-hand as I spent hours shooting strangers on the internet or collecting currency in virtual worlds. Still, I thanked my father for not giving me a smartphone in my adolescence, and then I cursed him for letting me get a degree in a field related to software, putting eggs in a basket which I’d like to throw out the window. I wished that my father could have seen me in my youth and told me what I would like to tell myself now: do not pursue the virtual world. Then I forgave my father and I forgave myself for the act of judgment.

I went back to my desk and the remainder of work passed quickly. I passed on the nightly workplace ritual of Super Smash Bros after work, citing the fact that I had a date. I looked at my watch. I had plenty of time.

I biked it home and followed my usual routine into the shower. Condensation pooled on My Only Friend La Croix as he sat on the edge of the tub. I stared at his aluminum face between his letters and his orange and silver sharks and I looked for a moment then brought a delicate hand around his exterior, gently gripping with thick fingers, pulling his frame to my lips for a drink and then I sat him back to his place on the shower frame next to the two white Le Labo bottles, peas in a pod.

The fog was burning off just past Sanchez Street as it rolled east. I stomped north in my brown boots toward Church. I passed Spro as they were still closing and made eye contact with the cleaners, who had taken all of the chairs and garbage and recycling bins inside. I gave them a nod and they continued chatting.

I wondered about the prospects of the date ahead of me. This was to be my first encounter with Lisa, who I had met on Hinge, and she wanted to meet at the tiki bar near my place despite living over in the Tenderloin.

The bouncer looked at my ID and opened the door into the dark space. The bar was centered within what appeared to be the frame of a fuselage, accompanied with high chairs which were retrofitted from old airplane seats. There were fake plants and vines hanging from the ceiling; the whole scene felt like if Disney owned Indiana Jones and designed the franchise into a theme park (with alcohol). There were a few open seats near the entrance of the bar, so I claimed one along the corner. I looked at the extensive selection of rum for a long time: Probitas, Holmes Cay, Hampden Estate. The bartenders wore black earpieces and aprons with tweezers. One of them poured me a water.

Conflicts over the merits of dating filled my head. I felt that I had to explore dating in this new city, although I felt like I had already found someone who I deeply connected with, but she lived far away. I knew that it would be a disservice to myself to make no attempt at dating locally, but I couldn’t decide if my heart was in it. Hinge to pass the time, I suppose.

Lisa and I went out a few times after our first date. I remember going up the rickety elevator to her fifth floor apartment late after a night out. The door to the elevator had to be slammed shut, otherwise the latch wouldn’t catch and you’d have to try again. Her place was the smallest apartment I had ever seen; room for a bed and a desk, piles of appliances and bullshit stacked above the counters in the kitchen. There were white walls with reasonably high ceilings, but it was maybe 300 square feet. The place looked out toward the back side of another high building and it felt to be in a local low: no cinematic city views.

We used the mirror next to her bed to its full advantage. “Holy shit” was her phrase of the night. She complimented my body in the little hours, saying that I looked like a Greek statue, which I appreciated. I spent so many hours in the gym trying to improve my body; first I started for the validation that I expected to get from women, then I switched over to do impressive lifts within the gym itself, finally realizing that I need the endorphins from a workout to feel sane. So I told myself—it had been a long time I considered that cycle of mindsets. Settled again on “validation from women” I had realized.

We went to take a shower. The plumbing was old, she complained, so it ran slowly. She knelt down in the little pond in the heat of the moment anyway. I offered to fix it for her afterwards. She seemed enthusiastic at my offer. Before I knew it, I was on the receiving end of the San Francisco special, and I didn’t hear from her again.

Scary stories propagated on the internet promote the importance of being distrustful of others. I was taught as a child to avoid “stranger danger,” but San Francisco takes it to an eleven, passively learning to not even perceive strangers—just avert your eyes, a floating entity to swerve. True crime podcasts fills ears, planting a seed of paranoia. Men on the street shoot up in broad daylight. I can’t blame the walkers for wanting to maintain their sphere of isolation for that fact alone.

I was glad that I had the type of childhood without too much helicopter parenting, fortunate to bike around the neighborhood without billboards of payroll software and startup banking ads occupying my periphery, or the nagging pull of a smartphone, begging to be released from my pocket. My bike rides along the canal path in Tempe brought me the nuanced pleasure of feeling the slight change in humidity in contrast with the desert air that filled the rest of the neighborhood. The low sun gave a final breath of warm air to the desert and kissed it goodbye and goodnight with a pink sunset.

I downed my coffee and made it to the office. Alex and Jay were there, discussing Alex’s recent breakup. I went into the kitchen, pulled a shot of coffee, then pulled up next to them.

“I think it’s time I get back to it,” Alex said. “It’s been enough time, I think. More fish in the sea!”

“Yeah, dude!” said Jay.

“Koza, how’s stuff going for you? Still pretty fresh, right? How are you finding dating here?”

“Honestly, I don’t know,” I said. “I was seeing this girl before I came here and I’m still trying to figure out my feelings, there. She moved to LA, and I think we’re both thinking that we wouldn’t want to do long distance, but I’m tempted to propose it.”

“Oh-ho, don’t do it dude! You definitely don’t want to do long distance! Don’t do it dude, it’s not worth it,” Allen said. “I’ve been there, done that—there really are so many people here, I’m sure you can find someone.”

I shrugged. “I’ve been going on dates.”

“Like, what? Are you on Bumble or Tinder or something?”

“I’ve been using Hinge and Tinder, yeah. I think online dating sucks, though,” I said.

I didn’t know why I held that dissonance—to hate online dating yet continue to do it. I had used dating apps since I entered college and had the pervasive feeling that it was somehow crippling my ability to date naturally; I had an awareness of the early internet in which fewer aspects of our lives were caught in a web of technology, so I thought that I was somehow missing a developmental opportunity in using the apps. They were a crutch. Perhaps I used them because it felt like it opened up more possibilities, but my impression was that it was like having a soda machine in your home—too much access to empty calories bringing dissatisfaction over making the healthy choice of going to touch grass.

“Here’s what you have to do. It’s just like sales,” Allen said.

He posted up next to the whiteboard and took the cap off a red Expo. “You have to cast a really wide net, honestly, but you need to know how qualified the leads are right away. You can’t just go for anyone—even if you have reason to disqualify someone, you might as well.” He drew a big cone on the whiteboard. “It’s worth it to be choosy with your funnel.” He made little Xs within the widest portion. “Then you hone in on something about their profile—and that’s another thing: you absolutely shouldn’t waste your time on someone who has a profile that gives you nothing. You need to have something in common or something worth talking about right off the bat. If she doesn’t mention any activities or hobbies or whatever, that’s a hard one.”

He continued to draw on his dating pipeline, adding letters and layers to each step of his funnel. “Then you have to try to get off the app as soon as possible. A few exchanges and then you need to set aside time to go on dates—like, Saturday, Sunday and Monday can be the day that you send out messages, and you should try to lock something down for Thursday. Girls don’t like to go out on first dates on the weekend—it’s too precious of time, but if you can get a date going on Wednesday or Thursday, that’s perfect,” he said.

Something about it felt overly systemic for me; I didn’t want to play a numbers game, I craved something more authentic and romantic. That might be asking for too much. It rubbed me wrong; it almost seemed like the next words out of his mouth would have been: “We could actually probably write an algorithm to do it for us.”

I thought about how Allen said that he had just gotten out of a serious relationship. Was this attitude new, or something from his old days having a resurgence? I felt wrong that he discounted the idea of me trying to be in something dedicated and long distance instead of playing the field, having three girls at a time in an inorganic and sterile dating pipeline. Is this now the common virtue—to spin the wheel and get the biggest, best prize, optimizing a pipeline built on technology and letting the nuanced choices of our body and gut feelings fall by the wayside? I was not ready to wish away all of the things hindering us from advancing into our technological future.

I pulled California agreeability as Allen seemed really into it and I didn’t want to spoil his fun, so I nodded along. He continued talking to Jordan and I went to the fridge to crack a Pamplemousse La Croix. I wished that I could distill the advice that I received from My Only Friend into something less hazy. All he ever tells me are things I don’t wholly understand, and that’s not for lack of trying. I was constantly getting inputs from My Only Friend La Croix which evaded me like a black cat, perfectly attuned in presence and reception, turning a corner, allowing another to only catch a glimpse of a fleeting tail.

“It’s important that you find a girlfriend by July, dude. I don’t know what it is, but it’s like cuffing season in San Francisco. If you haven’t found a girlfriend by then, it becomes way harder—everyone is paired up,” he said.

“That’s wild,” I said to him. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Check this out,” he said to me. He walked back over to the fridge and lifted the foil on the pan, tilting it for me to see. “Banana bread.”

“Nice, did you make it?” I asked.

“No, my girlfriend did. My girlfriend is incredible.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Like, once you try this banana bread, you’ll understand. And get this—she’s a director at Google. Plus, she’s super hot.”

“Sounds like a catch,” I said.

“O-oh yeah. Can’t believe it. So hot.”

I excused myself and went back to my desk, confused by the experience I just had. As long as he considered himself lucky, I figured it was a win, except for the fact that I had to sit there and nod politely as he told me about his super-hot girlfriend. Who am I to get in the way of love?

I fiddled with the code until it made sense as the day turned to evening. I hauled my bike downstairs and zipped up my rain jacket. It was cold and the sun had already gone down. I traced my daily route and couldn’t help but tear up from the cold air. I almost always involuntarily cried on my bike. I loved riding my bike except during the rain which seemed to be most days in my first winter in San Francisco.

I made it home and lugged my bike upstairs, leaving it at my entryway. I ran inside and kicked off my soaking Vans and stripped off my rain jacket and my wet pants. I swapped the gear in my bag, removing my laptop for my yellow climbing shoes and chalk bucket. I put on joggers and a tank top and put wet feet in wet shoes, squelching.

I carried my bike back downstairs. I threw my right leg over the side of my bike and rode between the naked cherry trees on Dorland and coasted down away from Sanchez on the decline most of the way to Harrison before Potrero Hill. I prepared mentally for the fixed-gear leg up the high hill, pumping my quads and calves onto the slim pedals of my single-speed northbound hill on 17^th Street.

Beads of fine mist squirmed their way into my eyes despite my squinting through the sparse rain. My Vans were even more damp and my nose was running from the chill against my face as I coasted, giving myself a breather before the next hill up Mississippi. I slammed that hill and was through the tough parts of the ride, legs burning but relaxed.

I fiddled with my bike lock as I parked outside of Dogpatch Boulders. The expansive gym always reminded me of a dance club, especially on Wednesdays, due to the inordinate mass of post-work 6PM athletes combined with the curated selection of electronic and pop music. I found a cubby for my backpack, kicking off my street shoes. I unloaded my damp chalk bag and La Sportivas into one hand and took off toward the corner of the gym to find a spot on the wall in which I wouldn’t have to elbow other boulderers for a route.

I saw Dirk as he held a lime La Croix, standing completely soaked in his white shirt. It had “Guess” written over it in red to make diagonal stripes and it looked like Dirk had just been in the pool. I knew that he had just finished an intense bout of Stairmaster and he was smiling in conversation with a girl over by the benches. I walked over and gave him a fist bump and made quick eye contact with La Croix.

“Oh hey, Kevin!” he said to me. “Have you met Julie?”

“Hey. I’m not sure—nice to meet you,” I said to her as we shook hands.

“Nice to meet you! How do you know Dirk?” she asked.

I had met Dirk at Mission Cliffs, I told her. Dirk knew everyone and he was a connecting presence within the gym—it seemed like everyone knew Dirk. He always gave off positive, social energy and it was clear that he took his fitness and climbing seriously. I remember thinking that Dirk was around my age when I met him, later to discover that he’s nearly ten years older than I am. I admired his healthy lifestyle.

“Kevin is like, a crusher,” he said to Julie, breaking eye contact with the both of us, looking at the ground.

“Hey, you are too,” I laughed.

“Yeah but you climb like V10,” he said.

“I’ve been climbing for a while.”

“How long have you been climbing?” Julie asked.

“About seven years,” I said.

“I wish I had been climbing that long,” Dirk said. “It’s way too hard to keep up here. Some of these guys climb, you know, everything in the gym.”

“I know what you mean—I see those competition kids absolutely crushing everything, and it makes me wish that I had started younger, but that’s life, you know?” I said.

I watched Julie warm up as I stretched. She would pivot from side to side as she kept her arms straight, reaching for the next plastic hold with poise. She pointed her calves to gain more distance into the next handhold and made quick, precise movements up the wall. She tapped the top and dropped down a few holds, then fell and rolled on the pad. We all exchanged fist bumps.

“So how do you know both know each other?” I asked Julie.

“We met at Mission Cliffs,” she said.

“Ah, right—that’s seemingly how everyone knows Dirk.”

“Yeah. I didn’t realize he worked at Apple when I first met him either,” said Julie.

“Oh yeah? Are you also at Apple?”

“Yep.”

“How do you like it?”

“It’s good. I mean, it’s definitely a job, right?” she said.

“Sure,” I said.

My image of San Francisco was shifting the longer that I lived there. I had arrived with an admiration of those who had the caliber to get into these big tech firms right out of college, although I found myself living in greater ambiguity by the moment. On one hand, I intuited that most of the connections I was making was with those who were the top of their class, and on the other I found them to be solidly normal, average people. I had become disillusioned to the idea that these companies and employees were deserving of the pedestal upon which I had once placed them; being a guy who sort of traipsed into tech, and having gone to a state school, I had thought that San Francisco was the pinnacle of the tech scene, but was that laurel worth anything to me? I vacillated between considering everyone in San Francisco far more normal than I had once thought and that everyone in this city was too busy and successful for their own good, instilled with fucked priorities, crushed under the weight of their own expectant potential, formed into misshapen diamonds under pressure unnatural for a human.

The busyness of the place crept into my skull, and I felt behind. How was it that I barely had time to get all of my necessary adult tasks done, plus tacking on time for hobbies and relaxation? Was this a bad set of choices and planning on my end, or did I have an over-inflated, internalized pull to flashy productivity? I thought about my boss—how he was too busy for his own good, working till 9PM every night, traveling to South Africa for a wedding or Peru for a retreat, but he seemed happy. My gut said that something was off. I felt that these people around me liked to commoditize their experiences as a badge meant for display around them. The accolades build, but does the life become greater?

I thought about my here and now; a conversation about skill level and wishing to have started earlier, combined with my desire to stretch and take the time to warm up. There was no rush and I meant to kept my mind aware of that. Memories of cracking into a tangerine La Croix in my old apartment, preparing to cook fresh ingredients that I had chosen by hand while leisurely pushing a shopping cart filled my head. Those ingredients were not delivered to me by a man beckoned by an app, wrapped in plastic, thrown without care into the backseat of a Camry as one of countless deliveries for the evening. My quads and hamstrings were still tight and sore from the bike ride and I appreciated the luxury to make my own way to the gym in contrast with hopping in an Uber. It might not have been the highest optimization of my time to bike to the gym, but it felt deliberate.

I lugged my bike back up the stairs to Casa Sanchez, ready to collapse for the night. I kicked off my soaking vans and stripped off my puffy jacket and hung it up to dry, then I threw my bike onto the hooks in the ceiling. I gave it a quick wipe so that it wouldn’t drip all over my bookshelf and stripped off my shirt and ran to the fridge. I cracked a coconut La Croix and stripped off my shorts and turned on the shower and the low light in my small bathroom. I stepped in and threw the curtain closed. Thus as always began the “lost hours,” I started to wash my hair and closed my eyes. I put conditioner in and I became absorbed in the feeling of having water run over my head. My vision played no part in my consciousness, then out of nowhere, I was done with my little ritual and had left those lost hours. I didn’t know what I was doing or what I had been thinking but it was time to wash my body. My Only Friend La Croix waited for me on the edge of the bathtub.

I realized how thirsty I was, so I turned around and let the water from the shower head fall into my mouth. I opened my eyes with my head back. I credited La Croix for breaking me from my trance, finishing my shower and toweling off. It was a rainy evening and I was now warm, so any ambitions to leave my apartment had vanished—in fact, I had no ambitions to do anything. I felt antsy in the house. I wanted to go play pool or go out and get a drink and write. The idea of being around strangers while I journaled and sipped an old fashioned felt nice. I put on shorts and did some swinging on my doorframe, stretching my tense muscles after a long evening of climbing. My Only Friend La Croix waited for me still on the edge of the bathtub, glistening with shower drops on his smooth skin. He was only one third full. I chugged him and swapped him for another, fresher La Croix, turning from the fridge to look at my easel.

Who am I kidding? I thought. It was a Wednesday night and I knew I’d be staying in. I floated with La Croix over to my easel. My palette was clean and my knives were lined up nicely on the side of the table. I held the Humboldt #14 in my right hand and hovered over the palette. My hand drew nearer to the glass and toward the glob of Hansa Yellow, the tip of the knife about to break its beautiful surface tension. I stared at the dome of pigment and oil, neck craned low, and I retracted a touch. I set down the knife and I stretched all ten fingers in front of me, rotating and clawing my hands to the side, inspecting for lost oil. I flipped them and checked the back—nothing to see.

My head rose and I straightened my back, twisted my left ankle over my right knee, and bent my torso, pulling into a hip and oblique stretch. I glanced at the bookshelf under my bicycle. I tried to spot where I put My Only Friend La Croix. As I continued the arc of my vision, his presence became obvious to me, and he was exactly where I left him, surely two-thirds full of his false flavor. Waiting for my return.

With a hand on the back of my high stool, I touched my feet down lightly and coasted over to My Only Friend La Croix. I checked my hands again on the way over. I grasped the can and turned to look at what I had done. Not much progress yet, but there will be. I took a sip and sat over by the kitchen under my satin pothos and thought about the Hansa Yellow I planned on adding, smooth layer on smooth layer against the gritty canvas.

I sipped My Only Friend La Croix and tilted him face-front, admiring his cursive much like how I had been viewing my hands: analytical, knowing, attentive. My fleshy, thick-fingered, apeish hands—not particularly suited for delicate work, swollen from heavy use of my tendons while climbing. My Only Friend La Croix snapped me back into focus away from my own hands and beckoned me to look at his soft pink undercoat, accents of green to make waves under his letters. I admired his glistening, aesthetic skin. His shimmer was not so brilliant as to distract me from my true focus. Again, I picked up the knife.

We stopped for lunch at In-n-Out somewhere near Santa Clarita, parking the long truck in an adjacent hotel lot spanning a few parking spaces. We passed through Fresno quickly, reeling from the cow odor of middle California. Eventually we made it to Casa Sanchez in the late evening; the sun was setting as Todd let us in the gate off Dorland, the narrow one-way street between 17th and 18th. The truck took some maneuvering to fit into the seven-space parking lot. Jacob and I unloaded all of my furniture up the zig-zag flight of stairs to the second floor of Casa Sanchez, plodding up the not-quite-Saltillo tile amongst the huge monstera and elephant ear and banana plant leaves, dimly lit as the late evening dragged on. We carried up my blue couch that I’ve had since freshman year and futon which we then slapped down haphazardly in the middle of the living room in anticipation of a deep rest after a hard day’s work.

We needed to eat. It was past 10 PM and nothing nearby was open for dinner except for Big Lantern. Our hand was forced, so Jacob and I took off into the night toward 16^th. We walked by the white cathedral and noted how dead it all felt—but perhaps we were simply too exhausted to notice much. The well-lit restaurant reminded me of some of the places I’d eaten back in Phoenix: a small fountain with koi in the front and large Chinese brushwork paintings on the walls. We collected our order of Mapo Tofu and fried rice just near 11 PM and went back to eat in my apartment, sitting on the couch and floor among my scattered belongings. Neither of us said much. We promptly passed out, eyelids sparring with the dim glow of a streetlight out on Sanchez.

I had seen the apartment for the first time during a week in September. I went out to San Francisco to work for a week and find an apartment close to the office. The guys at the office and I worked hard during the afternoon, but I took off early every day to tour a place. I stayed at the Hotel Kabuki with its soft sheets and enticing fragranced soap and lotion and relaxed attendants and swanky bar with a view of the Japanese Maples and I recognized the class of the place as generally above my station; most places I went in San Francisco had a carefully curated charm, a respite from the opposite side of the coin one finds out on the street. I didn’t have time to think about the implications—only time to be impressed.

Between work and staying at Hotel Kabuki, I checked out multiple apartments. On Saturday I found a place in an old white building with a wrought iron fence and tiles above the entryway which spelled out Casa Sanchez. I did a lap around the building then went to Le Marais down in the little valley on 18^th Street. The French bakery was mostly empty except for a woman on her laptop seated at the table nearest the display case and a single man in front of me in line. He looked to be about fifty, and he had a leather vest which said “BOOZEFIGHTERS, EST. 1946” and a motorcycle helmet. He was already about on his way out with his pastries. I thought about how Boozefighters was fifty years old by the time that I was born, then I thought about how even the rough and tough need dainty sweet pastries.

I ordered an americano and an almond croissant like was apt to do in Spain and I sat and wrote for about thirty minutes before the property manager gave me a call that he was ready to show me the apartment.

He introduced himself as Todd as I met him by the Casa Sanchez gate. Todd was a stout man with stiff grey beard of medium length, jutting straight down to the earth. He showed me around the labyrinthian complex, ascending a half-flight of stairs to the second level. I was somehow already turned around. There were giant plants spewing out from the white trim around each room on the first level and a small fountain was trickling slowly in the open courtyard, washed out from the bright mid-afternoon sky. Todd let me in the apartment, which was long and narrow, but it had ample light and I liked the view of the hillside. I checked out all of the fixtures. Good enough, I had thought to myself.

I thanked Todd and went for a lap around the neighborhood again. There were yogis stretching and dogs frolicking in the open flat side of the nearby park. The metro line cut straight through the steep dug-out section adjacent to Church Street. That morning it was bright and radiant and the whole city felt warm. I felt imbued by the Saturday morning glow and the city had captured me.

Here I was, now with all of my belongings and commitment to this new place. Jacob and I rose near nine, grumbling for coffee. We were confused within the apartment complex because it was elevated a half-story on 17^th Street compared to on 18^th Street, so when Jacob and I left out of the main gate, we went for a lap around the neighborhood to get our bearings.

The sky in San Francisco takes on a peculiar gray character which makes everything else in the city pop; all of the lush greens and weird plants that stem from every corner of concrete appear all the more vibrant in contrast; nothing is washed out, no harsh light dares to dampen their beauty. The diffused light made by the clouds and the fog are what allow us to see everything for what it is.

The morning started out drab, but the weather turned and it proved to be a beautiful day. Jacob and I found a place on the corner called Spro. We had a quick cup then decided to spend the day at the park. We brought the lawn game called Kubb that we had been gifted back in Phoenix. In the grass of Dolores Park, we set up a small rectangle and placed the Kubb skulls in two lines. We stood across from each other, throwing femurs at the skulls, basking in the sun. Back and forth, back and forth: forever Kubb.

Jacob was set to fly out in the early evening. We went for a place called Woodhouse Fish which sat right on a sharp corner on Market—the building had a seat in the acute angle, maximizing the little space that the city could afford it. Jacob and I had fish and chips for the low cost of $28 per plate.

“Well, I hope that you get settled in quickly,” Jacob said.

“Yeah, I’m excited to get the place together. I’m pretty happy with the spot so far,” I told him.

We said our goodbyes as I left him at the BART station. It was comforting to have a friend see me off into this new and unfamiliar place, ushering me into his native state while he flew back to mine. We had in common, however, that neither of us knew what life might be like in San Francisco.

I heard the rain when I woke up. I rolled on my tatami and looked at the painting I had placed above my closet. The ritual helped me to feel continuity with my art—I could go to sleep dreaming of painting and the first thing I saw was the result of my labor. The red and tan painting above my closet was reminiscent of rolling sand dunes. In Phoenix I had once become so lost in this painting, unable to escape from visions that I was being crushed and rolled into these Bright Red and Naples Yellow sand dunes, grains constricting and dilating like the lens of a camera around my body. I had no longer trusted time to move forward as I was within this pinhole, this washing machine of color—though eventually, time made itself apparent, as it often does.

On my bed, I imagined myself back in the desert then focused my thoughts on the rain, knowing that I would be wet by the time that I got to work.

I sprang out of bed and stripped down, took a shower, then brushed my teeth. I opened my wardrobe and put on a pair of black underwear and jeans, then snagged a black shirt off a hanger in my closet and put on a brown corduroy over it and layered on my rain jacket. I grabbed my backpack and took my bike down from the hooks in the ceiling and coasted it over to the front door.

The mist was falling steadily through the open courtyard in Casa Sanchez. The leaves of the two-story banana plant strained under the new weight of water, but it was chained daintily to the wall, so it stood no chance of accomplishing its desire to fall straight through my bedroom and crush me in my sleep. Surely, it would not crush me in my sleep. I lifted my bike down the damp stairway and rolled it through the southern gate. The latch to the gate was within a metal cylinder, protruding inward to the complex, which was surrounded by a layer of decorative siding to prevent external from fitting through the bars. The latch reminded me of the pain-box that the Paul Atriedes from Dune has to endure so that he might prove his humanity. Was I proving anything by leaving Casa Sanchez today? I felt that I was entering a world filled with oppressive rain, cold rain, biking to and from my sanctuary. Perhaps I had to prove something every day, using the locomotion of my legs throughout the downpour, biking up the hills with a face full of mist.

I made the detour on my way north to Spro to see if I could wait out the rain. The corner café on 17^th and Church was quickly becoming my third space. I locked up my bike and approached the threshold, peeking in the windows to see who was at the bar. The rain wet my hands as I fiddled with my u-lock, now rusty to the point where I had to finagle the key thoroughly until it finally gave. The dawn had not brought enough light to the city on this January morning, so the cool glow on the white-floored and white-walled interior of the building was inviting in the drab winter.

Lynn was standing at the bar chatting with Sarah. She wore a black sports coat over a white sweater and gold hoop earrings. She turned from her conversation to address me.

“Hi, Kevin!” she said.

“Hey, Lynn,” I said.

“You’re here pretty early,” she commented, although she did not look sleepy herself.

“I guess so. I need to have my first coffee before I get my second coffee at work, you know?” I said.

Lynn laughed. “I get what you mean,” she said. “What are you having?”

“I’ll just do an americano for now, thanks. How are you?”

“I’m good. I just started teaching again so that has been taking up a lot of my time. I’m working with this girl who is so precious, she’s really good and her parents are really funny. I go over there and work with her a few times a week,” said Lynn.

“That’s awesome, glad to hear it.” I gave her a smile, then pulled out my notebook and pen from my damp backpack.

“I really like your handwriting,” Lynn told me.

“Oh, thank you—I guess I practice a lot,” I said.

“What are you writing?” she asked.

“Oh, just some things here and there. Nothing too particular. It’s mostly journaling but a lot of random observations on the city and life, I guess,” I said. I looked at her and she was looking at my notes. “I sometimes will try to write down everything that happened to me the day before with as much detail as possible. It’s just an exercise—I think it has to be good for your brain. Sometimes I’ll riff on something in particular and add how it makes me feel. Lots of times I’ll write out my ambitions or projects I’m working on,” I told her.

“Interesting,” she said. I hoped that she was interested.

“Well, here’s that americano,” she said, passing my coffee over the red espresso machine.

“Thanks,” I said.

I looked down at my notebook. Much of my writing went nowhere—it was a smattering of to-do lists or poetry. I had developed the habit of poetry in Spain. Most of my recent writing, however, was about my recent take on the cold, and the rain, and the culture of San Francisco. I did not feel at place. The delicate mix of my poetry habit and my culture shock manifested into a new form of writing. I pulled out my pen.

LaCroix glares at me from his perch in the corner. It’s not like his silvery skin stands out or anything, he thinks, surely. There’s no way he doesn’t know. My Only Friend La Croix is aware of it all! Yes! Surely, My Only Friend La Croix is privy to all knowledge, especially those thoughts which make circles in my head.

I lost my train of thought as I finished my coffee. I checked my phone for the time and saw that it was approaching 8.

I rode my bike up Church and took the right on Market and legged it up the hill on my single-speed. I cruised down Market until the freeway exit on Octavia, knowing that I needed to gain enough momentum to hit the second hill hard otherwise I would have to stand up on my pedals to make it over. My legs were getting stronger by the day and I went from huffing and puffing to taking the hill casually. I cruised by Patricia’s Green and swung up Octavia to the right on Grove.

The old office sat on the corner in what used to be the old Coffee Meets Bagel office. This affluent space in Hayes Valley was bordered by wine bars and French restaurants and there was a mix of people dressed in fancy clothes and the less fortunate homeless out on the street from nine to nine. Somehow the location felt more isolating to me than if it had been in the Mission, or really anywhere where one could get a reasonably-priced bite to eat. The closest gym was the outdoor fitness lot near Patricia’s Green where personal trainers would float around the sparse weights section and pose for interlocutors in their leggings or tight hoodies, flexing to show their beautiful bodies for those who walked their Goldendoodles or other passers-by getting an $8 latte from the Ritual café served out of a shipping container.

I called the phone and pressed star twice and the latch opened, then I carried my bike up the flight of stairs. I walked over the hardwood floors and set my bike down against the eastern brick wall. The lights were off but the drab morning glow was eking through the large windows. It felt strange that Jay and I were the only two in the vast space. I knew none of my teammates would be in for another few hours so I waltzed over to my desk and grabbed the dark mug that my mom had made me when I was eighteen then took it to the kitchen. The mug had a temoku glaze and the handle had broken off when one of the office cleaners took it from my desk and left it in the dishwasher, I presumed. I refilled the water in the Nespresso machine and pulled a pod with a coffee from Kenya out of the cabinet, then pulled the shot into my broken mug. How could a company that sold me on the sustainability impact of its work not recognize the local disparity of using disposable coffee pods? Supposedly they’re recyclable, but it seemed like the siren’s song of convenience trumping the benefits of doing it the old-fashioned way. Yet there I stood, watching the coffee pull into the dark well of my mom’s mug, rolling with the status-quo. How could I claim to be any better? I was becoming one of the tech bros, not thinking about my small actions. Instead I was helping to shoehorn a solution into a systemic problem which I did not feel that I understood.

I grappled with the required dissonance over my second coffee of the day and shuffled over to my desk. I looked out the window over by Jay’s desk and it was still lightly raining. I opened my laptop and stared into the abyss of the screen as it booted. I took a heavy breath in and out. I booted up VS Code and took a glance through the Python file that I was trying to understand for my current assignment. Suddenly the focus gripped me, and I was tinkering away with the scheduling file. I wrote a separate test file to make sure that what I was doing was remotely sane. The old tests weren’t passing. I took another heavy breath and closed my eyes. I added a point in the debugger above the point that I thought was causing the issue. Totally reasonable, I thought. I executed the tests again and sipped at my coffee.

She placed her nicer things on my sparse collection of hangers and stacked her jeans into the corner of the closet, then shut the suitcase. The orange light of the early evening poured in from the glass door to the balcony and all the lights were off in my apartment.

I looked at the painting that I had finished in the days leading up to her arrival. The light strokes circled around the top of the white and tan piece, but it was clear that I became overeager with the application of paint at the bottom. It didn’t seem as finished as it could be, although I had to trust my gut on when to call it. Pecking away at something forever doesn’t improve it, past a certain point—it makes more sense to close it, to wrap it up, and start something new.

Dee stood up to meet me in the threshold of the closet.

“All set?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she said. I held her by the waist and kissed her.

“Do you want to go get stuff for dinner?” I said.

“Yes, Sprouts?” she asked.

We left the apartment and drove the few miles down to Sprouts, where we lazily shopped for supplies for the week. Dee picked out most of the produce except for the fruit and I grabbed another case of Tangerine La Croix with my handful of mangos and oranges and green apples.

We drove back home and laid out all of the ingredients of our feast on the white countertop next to the coil stove. I pulled out a cutting board and started cutting up some toast while Dee washed the cucumber. How unique to me was this time! These rituals were bliss: to slowly and deliberately choose ingredients for a healthy meal with this woman who I had become so comfortable, knowing that we would later peacefully sleep together in the same bed in my first solo apartment showed a glimpse of a sustainable way of living in tandem with another. This was foreign to me yet delightful. Still, there was no pretense that this would last, as I knew that she was moving to Los Angeles and she knew that I was moving to San Francisco, but we enjoyed what we had.

“Ok, go, go,” Dee said to me, as she took the knife and cucumber on the cutting board. “Wait, where are the sesame seeds?”

I opened the drawer and pulled them from the other spices.

“Here you go,” I said.

“Thank you,” said Dee.

I went into the bathroom and started to draw us a hot bath, sprinkling some orange blossom salt into the tub as the water level was still low. I stripped off my shirt and pants and watched the water for a moment more, then went back out into the kitchen.

The next day we walked down to a place on 3^rd Street for a single drink—a casual Friday night. Dee and I made eye contact while I watched her sip her orange cocktail in the booth. I had just finished my Radler.

“Feeling ready to go?” I asked her.

“Yes,” she said.

I took my hand from hers and kicked my legs from the booth and stood up, waiting for her to follow. We navigated through the dark room which was not much bigger than a shipping container. I paid for our two drinks and she stood next to me and I held her by the waist. I signed the check and grabbed her hand and walked with her out to the courtyard.

We took a moment to watch the wedding party at the long banquet table in the adjacent venue. String lights illuminated the scene between rows of Palo Verde trees. I was feeling good with the warmth of the desert air and the alcohol and the feeling of the radiant woman beside me. I squeezed Dee’s hand a little and played with her fingers and kicked off towards the road. We started to walk north on 3^rd Street.

“What time do you want to drive up tomorrow? But what are we doing for coffee?” said Dee.

“I will make you coffee,” I said to her. I squeezed her hand and kissed it. “We can leave at any time that we feel like.”

“And then we will get more coffee,” she said.

“Of course.”

We came to the turn on Fairmont and went east. I swung her hand around and looked at the low Phoenix homes with their chain link fences and sparse grass on the south side of the street.

“Look! Rabbits!” Dee said in a whisper. We both stopped walking. I spotted two tan rabbits and a dark one in the yard just south of us.

“What! Who do you think they belong to?” I asked.

“I have no idea, do you think they’re wild? I didn’t think there would be wild rabbits around here.”

“I have to imagine that they are,” I said. “It seems unlikely that they’d just stay in this person’s yard with their fence like that.”

“Yes, how strange.”

As I was cooped up at home, I would frequently go out around lunchtime into the Arizona heat with no shirt and no shoes and step out onto the clover grass bordered by small palms and yellow bells. I would lay out a blanket and swing around kettlebells and listen to The Rat as he hacked at 2x4s with his circular saw, crafting yard furniture or workbenches. At one point he made us a nice ladder which we used to get on the roof and watch sunsets, complete with grilled Food City chicken and avocados. I would do my afternoon circuit after I had written software in the effective hours of the morning. My mind was clear and I was strong at keeping it clear—it was easy in this state of the world with few personal distractions. There was nothing for me to consistently worry about; my family was healthy and I had no overarching angst over what I was doing with my career or my dating life or my passions.

In the mornings I would practice Spanish with my ever-smiling tutor from the Canary Islands. She spoke clear Spanish with a smooth accent. I learned a lot of Spanish slang which I later came to realize was slang. She encouraged me to speak about my painting and my other interests and describe my city. We would talk about zapatos de gato and surfeando and obras de arte and she would tell me about Tenerife and her biking trips throughout the islands. Her passions and radiance influenced mine and I felt that I was making progress to the eventuality which I held clear in my mind: learn Spanish, take a break from my job, and travel to South America and Spain.

Many of my days were the same and I was lucky. I felt fortunate that the houses east of us had great big trees which were the perfect branch-swaying spectacle for watching the peach-faced lovebirds and grackles. We would hunker down on the expansive blue couch that we put under the patio and The Rat and I would make a pot of Chemex to split it in the early morning. We would crack open the sliding glass door with our mugs in hand and feel the still-cool Saltillo tile on our bare feet and we would sit on the wooden chairs and talk about all sorts of things before the sun had cast its heat into the valley. We would savor the feeling of warming air in the Arizona valley, still cool enough to appreciate a hot cup of coffee, but apparent that the heat was on its way. The Phoenix weather has a charm in which you can feel the gradual changes—people claim that there are no seasons in Phoenix, but it’s clear that sometimes it’s hotter than hot, and other times it is just hot. It is satisfying to notice the morning glow creep up over the days and it makes it easy to rise at dawn.

The Rat and I would hold our ceramic mugs and try to spot the blue mud dauber that had taken our yard as its territory, which indicated to me that we had spiders unseen. The dauber would crawl around as a shining emerald jewel and explore our backyard, running around in circles, and The Rat and I would chat and warm up for the day. We would watch the black carpenter bees and hear the buzz of hummingbirds, soaking in the feeling of the air and the riches of our idyllic, localized ecosystem. There was no sense of urgency around anything for any of us in that house. Time and progress were put on hold due to the pandemic. We had time to drink coffee and relax before starting the day and we would go for long walks to the Ethiopian Cafe for a ginger coffee and smell the creosote and eucalyptus on Wilshire Street in the old Phoenix neighborhood. The mornings evolved as the season heated up and I would wake early and we would all pile into my 4Runner and take a half-mile lap over to Dunkin Donuts. The four of us always referred to Dunkin Donuts in some bastardization like “donkey don’t-hurts” or “dumb-key done-yurts” and it became a morning routine to hit the drive-thru to get cold brews and sour cream donuts or Beyond Meat sandwiches. I would wear a mask just for the short interaction with the cashier and strip it off to taste the first sip of the cold, rich coffee in contrast with the hot morning air. I would get chills while listening to the roar of the chunky tires as we screamed out of the drive-thru onto Thomas and down 40^th Street.

We would hop out of the truck and stomp over the grass in our front yard and jump the small fence to our front door. Jacob would leave for work and I would often go out back with The Rat and Sam and drink coffee until nine. The Rat would go back to writing and I would slowly get up from my perch and go take a meeting then get to work—it was already hot as hell at that hour, so getting up and working through the middle of the day was only natural. I would peck at my keys, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, writing software for a few hours. I had no sense of when we might return to the office.

The streets around us were all residential, so it was easy to wander around with no destination in mind—in fact, as many houses in Phoenix are, it was the opposite of walkable. The maze of suburbia was apparent. The house itself had plenty of space and a small Arizona room which I had claimed as painting space for half of the year. I made a few of my favorite pieces while camped out in that corner. The Rat and I had rescued a large desk with drawers from bulk pickup a few blocks away, and I made good use of it; I would squeeze tubes out onto the glass top and the space gave me liberty to explore, not being committed to any one concept of color at a time, so I went wild with the paint.

The Arizona room itself felt like home. It was amplified by the morning glow and there were days where I would pick up painting early. I could watch the insects take their morning slowly just as I would, remaining as lethargic as possible until having soaked up enough sun. I felt like the dawn, a nascent time in which I had no concept of real responsibilities or existential dread or the length of the day before me—I could live with creative purpose with no sense of productization, no value-extraction, no means-to-an-end. East Phoenix was a refuge of close friendship in a time of sudden danger and violence. It was simplification in the event of restriction.

Eventually the time came: I took a break from my job and went to Ecuador and Spain. The pandemic was still somewhat ongoing, but it felt to be on its way out. The time spent traveling was well worth it, but it was isolating—I made drawings and wrote poetry and read in cafes and spent nights alone in my apartment with sandwiches made of baguettes and jamón ibérico. There were many great stories from Ecuador and Spain, but those are for another time.

Now I was living further west in Phoenix in limbo before moving to San Francisco. My apartment was by the VA on Indian School and 7^th Street. It wasn’t anything special, but it was a place that would let me rent for three months. I never did up my apartment very well, but it was enough to get into the groove with which I was familiar. I slept on the floor and put some holes in the walls to hang up my painting collection. My painting setup was a bit silly; I had my Best easel in all its grandeur in the corner, joined by a small folding camping stool and a cooler with an old black glass desktop to serve as a palette and a surface for tubes of paint.

I spent my mornings rushing a bit more, making a cup of Chemex and staring at my painting from the prior evening. I was in the midst of getting situated with the new code at my job, learning the ins and outs of the Python code and trying to understand where all of the essential functions lived. I churned a little on the introductory projects and then took a break for lunch and spent time pecking at my painting. I spent the early evenings with more work as the guys were all operating quite late and I felt that I had to keep up. I went to the climbing gym and ran errands then continued to check in with work.

Somehow I felt like most of my time was spent setting up my apartment and getting situated in this space which I knew was temporary. I took the art which I bought from Spain and put it up in an array next to the drawing (mentally titled) Sensei which was intended to be junk that Jared had sent in addition to returning his key to our old place. He drew a lumpy man with hair in a bun who had a parrot on his shoulder with extremely long, curvy legs. The expression of the man and the parrot were the same—their stoic, sharp eyes seemed to see through me but they perpetuated a calm control. The man reminded me of a well-traveled teacher. I put the piece in a black frame and hung it up next to the prints which I had purchased in Real Alcázar.

I drove to the Sprouts in Midtown. I bought mostly healthy groceries—frozen fruit for smoothies, a few chicken breasts and cuts of salmon, broccoli and spinach, jasmine rice, peaches and mangos, tortilla chips, a baguette, and a case of La Croix. I drove home and the 4Runner crawled up to the second level of the parking garage. I walked from the second level of the garage directly into my unit and threw my keys on the counter. I unpacked the bags and put the meat, the vegetables, the case of La Croix and the fruit in the fridge. I singled out a mango and took out a cutting board and it felt natural to me to take delicate care to remove the produce sticker from the mango before washing it. This will be its final resting place, after all, so it should be put down in as natural of a state as it comes. I cut the mango into cubes and sucked at its flesh and stared at my easel in the corner and watched the movement of the fiddle leaf fig as she swayed under the ceiling fan in contrast with the stillness of my painting. My eyes cast lines and traces into the painting and I imagined what sort of burnt sienna or amber would fit into the landscape which coerced its way into the nooks of my mind, seeping out of the blanks in the canvas. I was salivating over the mango and over the concept of casting a soft glob of paint over the surface of another color, excited to see the piercing intensity of the crimson as it cast through the new layer which I would stroke into its protruding bulge, breaking and mixing the tension at the edge of a knife.

It was a long time that the unit of eight of My Only Friends La Croix saw only darkness. Upon the first beam of refrigerator light against his shiny existence, My Only Friend La Croix was met by me. I cracked into his head, pulling my finger into his tab with just as much force as necessary. My Only Friend La Croix knew nothing of where he was, for My Only Friend La Croix had been kept shoulder to shoulder with his seven brethren since his birth. Life outside by the box must have been beautiful for My Only Friend La Croix. Each of his seven successors must have felt the same, closely followed by his reincarnation, only becoming My Only Friend when plucked from the crate in the fridge. La Croix was surely beaming in anticipation of taking place of his predecessor; next in line, he waited in the dark, still and silent, not knowing what was to come. He felt the cool air, unencumbered by cardboard against his aluminum skin. My Only Friend La Croix knew something profound was to occur in his life when he could see but momentary flashes of light, brief escapades to him in which he would catch me friend plucking a peach from the fridge or standing and contemplating my level of hunger. My Only Friend La Croix saw me, and I saw him, and we made the conscious choice to lead our lives together.

I took the first tangerine La Croix and set him on the shelf above the sink and put some Rels B on my speakers and floated over to my easel and palette and automatically snatched a dark tube and pulled into it hard and cast a dark glob over the black reflective palette. I scraped under the paint with the knife and flipped the knife and pressed it down into its place, mixing pigment and oil, mesmerized, until I had a flat layer of burnt sienna. I pushed into it with the back of the knife—rapidly back and forth, watching the ridge that it formed each time, as fluid tectonic plates crash into each other and propel their upper cruft towards the sky. I pulled an avalanche of soft mixing white onto the palette and pierced out a small fleck of the paint at the tip of my knife and I mixed it into the dark and struck the knife back and forth and I scraped a large swath onto the back of the Holbein #14 and I stood up and squinted and cast it into the canvas. I felt no remorse nor hesitation in the second stroke and added more and more paint and I swung my arms as an ape does in the jungle from branch to branch, unconscious and unthinking, exerting himself with a face relaxed.

I took a step back once there was no more paint on the palette and I squinted at my painting. I stared at it and imagined that I was the paint and how I would like to be treated with such brutality but the moment passed and I was again unthinking, simply processing the changes and potential of the canvas.

I felt a presence tap me on the backs of my shoulders. The wave crashed over me and I had the sudden thought as to where I could have left My Only Friend La Croix. I was no longer painting and my hands felt radioactive and I turned to see that I was not alone in my sweat, for My Only Friend La Croix was sitting at his perch, beaded with condensation from the tip of his L downward where his cool fizzy water remained, his shining silhouette along the countertop, bright orange skin in contrast with the drab white kitchen cabinets. I felt parched and I pointed at him and apologized mentally for forgetting him for so long as I existed in my trance. I floated over to him and raised him to meet me, elevating myself with his bubbles and quenching my thirst. I set My Only Friend La Croix back in his place and continued.

I painted and painted until I had finished several cans and I went to lay down on the floor and covered myself in my grey comforter and fell asleep, half-dreaming of the images of painting ripples as they folded over another.